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A 



PROCEEDINGS 

ox 

Unveiling the Monument 

TO 

CESAR RODNEY, 

AND THE 

Oration Delivered on the Occassion 

BY 

Thomas F. Bayard, 

AT 

DOVER, DELAWARE, 

October 30th, 1889. 



WILMINGTON, DKL. : 

DELAWARE PRINTING COMPANY. 

1889. 



The History of the Monument. 



The home of Caesar Rodney was at " Poplar Grove," St. Jones' 
Neck, Kent county, Delaware, where he died on the 29th of June, 
1784. His place of interment was on the estate where he spent his 
days, and was unmarked save by a stone placed there recently by the 
Hon. Joseph P. Comegys, Chief Justice of the Superior Court of Dela- 
ware. In this neglected condition the grave of this distinguished 
Revolutionar}' statesman and warrior remained till the year 1887. In 
November, 1887, an organization was formed of 3'oung men of Dover 
to put a fitting monument over Caesar Rodney's remains. 

The organization thus formed took the name of "The Rodney 
Club." The officers originally chosen were — 

President, William G. Kurbix, 
Secretary, Henry Ridgely, Jr., 
Treasurer, Robert R. P. Bradford. 

In September, 1889, Henry Ridgely was elected president of the 
" Club," vice William G. Kerbin, who had removed to New York ; 
and W. Lee Cannon was elected secretary. 

The movement at once received generous pviblic support and uni- 
versal commendation. The "Rodney Club" brought the matter to the 
attention of the Delaware Legislature, and the following joint resolu- 
tion was passed at Dover, February 20th, 1889:— 

Whereas, It is right and proper that patriots should be especially 
honored, and the remembrance of their good deeds preserved for the 
encouragement cf patriotism in future generations ; and as other States 
have taken measures to honor their patriotic sires, Delaware should 
not be derelict in herdutj- to those who in perilous times pledged their 
fortunes and their sacred honor, to gain and secure for us peace, happi- 
ness and prosperity, unexampled in the history of nations; and 

Whereas. There is no fitter mode of expressing her appreciation 



8 

of their patriotism and of immortalizing their noble dsee thdan that 
of erecting monuments to their memory; and 

Whrreas, The remains of General Caesar Rodney, member of 
the Continental Congress, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, 
one of the presidents of the Delaware State during the war for inde- 
pendence, an eminent, self-den3nng patriot, a sturdy advocate of Amer- 
can rights and liberties, lie in the Episcopal bvirying-ground, at Dover, 
without any stone to mark their resting place; therefore 

Be it etiaded by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
State of Delaivare ifi General Assembly met: 

That, J. M. C. Rodney, Esq., John R. Nicholson, Esq., McKendree 
Downham, and the "Rodne}^ Club" consisting of Henry Ridgely, Jr., 
Robert R. P. Bradford, William G. Kerbin, George L. Whitaker, Peter L. 
Cooper, Jr., James H. Hughes, William Saulsbury, W. L. Cannon, Jr., 
R. H. Vandyke, and Nelson Spencer, and such others as they shall 
hereafter associate with them, are hereby appointed a committee to 
have a suitable monument, with appropriate inscriptions and devices, 
erected over the remains of General Caesar Rodney in the aforesaid 
burying-ground. 

Resolved, That the committee appointed by the foregoing resolu- 
tion, or a majority of them, are hereby authorized to draw their order 
or orders on the State Treasurer for any sum or sums not exceeding in 
the whole the sum of five hundred dollars, for the purpose of carrying 
into effect the object of the resolutions aforesaid, and the State Treas- 
urer be and he is hereby authorized and directed to pay the order or 
orders of the said committee so drawn on him, out of an}' money in 
the treasury not otherwise appropriated ; and it shall be the duty of 
the said committee, or a majority' of them, .to make report of their 
proceedings to the next biennial session of the Legislature, setting 
forth the expenditures consequent upon the execution of their duties 
under the provisions of these resolutions. 

Anterior to the passage of the above resolution, the " Rodnev 
Club ■ ' had removed the remains of Cresar Rodney from the old home- 
stead in St. Jones' Neck and had them deposited in the above men- 
tioned Episcopal Cemetery in Dover. 

In addition to the five hundred dollars thus secured from the 
State a like amount was given to the monument fund by the will of 
the late Mrs. Sally Morris, of Wilmington, Delaware, a daughter of 
his nephew Ceesar A. Rodney, and it was deemed advisable at once to 
proceed with the erection of the monument. 

Wednesda}', October 30, 1889, was fixed as the day of unveiling, 
and the Hon. Thomas F. Bayard was chosen the orator. 



Opening Ceremonies. 

Henry Ridgely, Jr., President of the "Rodney Club," 
introduced Governor R T. Biggs, who said : — 

" By virtue of my office as successor to Caesar Rodney 
in the executive office of the State, I have been invited by 
the "Rodney Club " to preside on this august occasion, and 
it now gives me pleasure to present to you the Rt. Rev. 
Leighton Coleman, Bishop of Delaware. ■" 

Pr.wer bv Bishop Coleman. 

O Almighty and most merciful CTod, we, thy unworthy servants, 
praj^ Thee to be especially presT;nt with us at this time and bless the 
ceremonies in which we are engaged. We praise and magnify Thy 
holy name as for all Thy goodness toward us, so particularly for the 
blessings of civil and religious liberty which thou hast vouchsafed 
this nation, and for the labors of those among our forefathers whom 
Thou didst inspire and direct in laying the perpetual foundations of 
freedom, peace and prosperity. And herein we chiefly thank Thee for 
the good example and efficient services in this glorious work of him in 
whose honored memor3^ we have set up this monument. We humbly 
beseech Thee that the devout sense of Thy gracious providence in our 
behalf may renew and increase in us a spirit of love and loyalty to 
Thee, a spirit of peaceable submission to the laws and government of 
our common countr3', and a fervent zeal for our holy religion which 
Thou hast preserv^ed and secured to us and our posterity-. 

May we improve these inestimable blessings for the advancement 
of true knowlege and godliness, and show ourselves a people ever 
mindful of Thy favour and ready to do Thy will. Bless the President 
of the United States, the (Governor of this State, the Judiciary, and 
the Legislature, and endue them with constant wisdom and fidelity. 

Grant to our land, and especiall}' to our own commonwealth of 
Delaware, honorable industry, sovind learning and pure manners. 
Defend our liberties and preserve our unity. Save us from violence, 
discord and confusion, from ignorance, pride and prejudice. Purge us 
of corruption, intemperance and coveteousness, and deliver us from, 
every evil way. Fashion into one happy people, fearing God and work- 
ing righteou.sness, the multitudes who come hither out of many kin- 
dreds and tongues. In the time of prosperity fill our hearts with 
thankfulness, and in the day of trouble suffer not our Trust in Thee 
to fail. All which we ask in the name and for the sake of our Blessed 
Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, who taught us when we pray to ,say 



ro 

Our Father, Who art in heaven, Hallowed be Thy Name. Thy King- 
dom come. Thy will be done on earth. As it is in heaven. Give us 
this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, As we forgive 
those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation ; But 
deliver us from evil : For Thine is the Kingdom, and the power' and 
the glory, for ever and ever. Amen. 

Governor Biggs then introduced Mr. Bayard and said : — 
"Having been selected to preside over this highly cul- 
tured and intelligent audience, I would be remiss in duty 
did I not return my sincere thanks to the Rodney Club 
for so high an honor, so distinguished a compliment. The 
State of Delaware, though one bf the smallest in the Union, 
has always been represented in the councils of the nation by 
men of intelligence equal to any other State. 

"We have met here to-day to unveil a monument to 
one of the great men of the revolution, who was born in 
Dover about the year 1730. Any one fainiliar with the life 
of Csesar Rodney cannot but believe that as a patriot he 
loved liberty, he fought for independence; and no man, 
living or dead, on the earth or under the earth, was his 
superior in every virtue which adorns and beautifies the 
human character. [Applause.] 

" I will not longer trespass upon your patience. It is 
my privilege and pleasure to introduce to you a gentleman 
known to you all, one who has given twenty years of his 
life to the public service, four of which have been as 
Secretary of State of the United States. One hundred years 
ago, from the 30th of April last, his great-grandfather, 
Richard Basset, one of the signers of the Constitution^ was 
elected a United States Senator from this State, and took 
the oath of office in the city of New York. 

' ' The pure name and white fame of the Hon. Thomas 
F. Bayard is not confined to the North American continent, 
but has leaped over the two mighty oceans which wash our 
shores and is known all over Europe. It now gives me 
great pleasure to introduce to you the Hon. Thomas F. 
Bayard, who will now address you. ' ' [Great applause. ] 



II 



Fellow Citizens of Delaware, Ladies and Gentlemen, 
Gentlemen of the Rodnf:y Club : 

It would appear that William Penn had beeu of like 
mind with my Lord Bacon, who held it to be "a shameful 
and unblessed thing to take the scum of people, and wicked, 
condemned men to be the people with whom you plant," and 
therefore when Penn came to let in the sunlight of liberty of 
the person in conscience and in conduct upon the colony he 
was planting on these shores, he sought as his companions and 
assistants men of character and substance ; and he brought 
out of England men of good stock and standing and excluded 
" the scum and wicked, condemned men." 

Among those who in the same year, but not in the same 
good ship, the "Welcome," that bore Penn and his shipmates 
up the Delaware bay and river in 1682, came William Rod- 
ney, of Bristol, who soon thereafter became a landholder in 
St. Jones, as it was then called, but since Nov. 25, 1682, has 
been the county of Kent, retaining the same boundaries. 

William Rodney was the American progenitor of the 
family of that name, and his posterity have continued to dwell 
within the Delaware State, as valued and estimable citizens, 
contributing important service to the commonwealth. He 
was of an honorable and distinguished English ancestry and 
traced his descent from Sir Walter de Rodeney, who came 
from Normandy in A. D. 1139, in the suite of the Empress 
Maude, daughter of Henry I and wife of Geoffrey Plantaga- 
nent. Earl of Anjou. Sir Walter served in the war against 
Stephen, by which the succession to the crown of England 
was secured to Henry H. 

In the subsequent history of England, the Rodneys 
proved themselves a valiant and honorable race, and these 
qualities of manhood were transmitted from genera- 
tion unto generation, and in a marked degree to the Ameri- 
can patriot in honor of whose memory we meet to-day, to 
raise an enduring monument to him for the conspicious part 
he played in the great contest to assert on this side the 
Atlantic the same principles of civil liberty which his ances- 



12 

tors had fought for and gained in England. For it was the 
same spirit of courageous manhood that breathes in the great 
charter of English liberty which proclaimed itself nearly 
six centuries later in the American Declaration of Indepen- 
dence, and to the same political training and same stock 
of race and blood is mainly due the steadfast courage 
and persistent moral energy that lent vital force to these 
ideals, gave them power, and imbedded them in the constitu- 
tions of their grovernments on both sides of the Atlantic 
ocean. 

When Washington, on April i8, 1783, issued from the 
headquarters at Newburgh on the Hudson, the order to the 
American armies upon the cessation of hostilities, with a pre- 
scient comprehension of the magnitude of the results that 
were to flow to the world at large from the victory God had 
vouchsafed to his country, he embodied a recommendation 
which to-day we should reverently follow, and which I will 
read to you in his own words: 

" I cannot help wishing that all the brave men of what- 
ever condition they may be, who have shared in the toils 
and dangers of effecting this glorious revolution of rescuing 
millions from the hand of oppression and of laying the 
foundation of a great empire, might be impressed with a 
proper idea of the dignified part they have been called to 
act (under the smiles of Providence) on the stage of human 
affairs ; for happy, thrice happy, shall they be pronounced 
hereafter, who have contributed anything, who have performed 
the meanest office in erecting this stupendous fabric of free- 
dom and enterprise on the broad basis of independence, who 
have assisted in protecting the rights of human nature, and 
establishing an asylum for the poor and oppressed of all na- 
tions and religions." 

The words of Washington are ever to be read withfever- 
encebyhis countrymen, for in them breathed the very soul of 
the revolution that made it possible for the inhabitants of this 
continent to become the masters of their own political destiny, 



13 

and in onr contemplation of the great fabric and superstruc- 
ture of empire, wealth, power, and all the forces of a pro- 
gressive civilization which has been reared upon their work, 
let us be ever mindful that the foundations were laid in the 
solid personal virtues, the conscientious fidelity to duty, to 
Almight)' God and their country, of a scanty handful of 
plain men around the tomb of one of whom we gather to-day 
in grateful remembrance. 

Soon after the arrival of William Rodney in the province 
of Pennsylvania, he settled in St. Jones, now Kent county, 
and in the annals of the period we find his name connected 
with the local government. He took part in the separate 
organization of the government of the three lower counties 
of New Castle, Kent and Sussex, on the Delaware, then com- 
monly styled " the territories, " in contradistinction from the 
three "upper" counties, Philadelphia, Bucks and Chester, 
known, and called by William Penn the "province." We 
find Mr. Rodney's name in the memorial of the representa- 
tive freeholders in the year 1700, when they endeavored 
unavailingly, but as it eventuated, fortunately, to re-estab- 
lish a Legislative union with the province, under the liberal 
charter of Penn as it had existed under the settlement of 
February 1682 ; and when the three lower counties had 
organized a separate assembly for their own government in 
1701, William Rodney was chosen Speaker of the Assembly. 

His father, whose name also was William, had married 
Alice the daughter of Sir Thomas Csesar, an eminent 
merchant of the city of London, and his son William died 
near Dover, Del., in the year 1708, leaving eight children 
and a considerable landed estate which was entailed, and 
by the decease of elder sons, finally vested in his youngest 
son, Caesar, who continued his residence as a landed proprie- 
tor in Delaware until his death in 1745- The Christian 
name of Caesar, the son of William Rodney, was derived 
from his great-grandfather. Sir Thomas Caesar. 

Caesar Rodney, the eldest son of Caesar and grandson 
of William Rodney, was born in St. Jones' Neck, near Dover, 



H 

in Kent county, Delaware, in the year 1728, and died at his 
residence, at Poplar Grove, in the same neighborhood, on 
the 26th of June, 1784, in the 57th year of his age. Left an 
orphan at the ag^ of seventeen, he selected Nicholas Ridgely, 
Esquire, to be his guardian at an Orphans' Court held in 
Dover on February 27, 1745- This early step had a most for- 
tunate influence upon his moral and intellectual training, for 
he was brought into the family and under the influence of an 
intelligent, honorable and upright man who wisely nursed his 
estate, carefully supervised his education and took an affec- 
tionate interest in his welfare. 

Mr. Ridgely caused his ward to be instructed in the 
classics and general literature and in the accomplishments of 
fencing and dancing, to fit his bearing and manners becom- 
ingly to the station in life in which he was born. 

Amid such domestic influences of morality, cultivation 
and refinement the youth of Csesar Rodney was passed, and 
the effect of these advantages was made apparent in his career 
in life. His correspondence is that of an educated man, his 
chirography, ^)f which I have seen several specimens, was 
clear and well-formed, with excellent power of expressing his 
sentiments. His personal disposition was extremely viva- 
cious ; of an active and vigorous nature he carried with him 
into whatever society he entered an influence at once engag- 
ing, attractive and impressive. His courage never faltered 
or failed, even " in the times that tried men's souls" and in 
its overflow was contagious among feebler spirits. 

From his early manhood he attracted the respect and 
confidence of his fellow^ citizens, and civil distinction 
commenced upon his attaining legal capacity and con- 
tinued throughout his life. He served in the legisla- 
tive assembly of the State prior to the stamp act of 
Congress in 1765, when his usefulness was extended to 
a wider field. At the age of thirty he was chosen High 
Sheriff of Kent county, and upon the expiration of his term 
was made a Justice of the Peace and Judge of the Lower 
Courts. In 1762 he was selected by the Assembly to revise 



15 

and print the laws in conjunction with Thomas McKean, an 
important duty which was satisfactorily performed. 

This may be regarded as his educational period pre- 
paratory to his chief work, and the real extent of his abilities 
and the true features wherein he excelled, were soon exhibi- 
ted by his selection in association with Thomas McKean, as 
"Representative of the Freemen of the three lower counties 
on the Delaware to the convention proposed by the House 
of Representatives of Massachusetts, to all the other colonies 
to be held at New York on the first Tuesday in October, 
1765,'' to consult together on the present circumstances of the 
colonies and the difficulties to which they must be reduced 
by the operation of the acts of Parliament in levying duties 
and taxes in the colonies, and to consider of a general, united, 
dutiful, loyal and humble representation of their condition 
to his Majesty and to the Parliament and to implore relief. 

To comprehend the extent and nature of the services 
rendered by Csesar Rodney and his compatriots, and the per- 
sonal qualities they brought to the aid of the cause of popular 
self-government, it is necessary to glance at the condition of 
affairs. 

Nowhere in the dominion of Great Britian was the 
sentiment of loyalty to the sovereign and fidelity to the 
Imperial government more thoroughly and sincerely evinced 
than in the American Colonies. Not only had these vig- 
orous emigrants conquered for themselves homes in a wil- 
derness and by their sharp axes, wielded with sinewy arms, let 
in the light of civilization to forests almost impenetrable, but 
when the counter currents of French and English ambition 
stri\"ing for control, had been transferred to this continent, 
the Americans, although left to shift for themselves against 
Indian assaults, and wholly neglected by the ' ' Mother 
Country," as it was fondly styled, levied at their own cost 
armed forces to uphold British dominion in America aild 
repel the military aggressions of France in her efforts to gain 
cis-Atlantic supremacy. When Benjamin Franklin, then in 
London as the agent of the colony of Pennsylvania, in February 



. i6 

1766, was examined before the House of Commons touching 
the wishes and feelings of the colonies in respect of the ' 'Stamp 
act," he was asked : ''Do you think it right that America 
should be protected by this country and pay no part of the ex- 
pense." He replied: "That is not the case. The colonies 
raised, clothed and paid durins^ the last year nearly 25,000 
men and spent many millions. ' ' And he further testified in 
relation to the Indian and French wars : "I know that the 
last war is commonly spoken of here as entered into for the 
defence, or for the sake of the people of /America. I think 
it is quite misunderstood. It began about the limits between 
Canada and Nova Scotia, about territories to which tJie Croivn 
indeed laid claim, but which were not claimed by any colony, 
none of the lands had been granted to any colony and there- 
fore we had no particular concern or interest in that dispute. " 
He might also have recalled the signal victory at Lewis- 
burg achieved by a force composed chiefly of New England 
fishermen by which "the key of the St. Lawrence, the bul- 
wark of the French fisheries and of French commerce in 
North x\merica," as it is well styled by the historian Bancroft, 
passed under British control. 

The Stamp Act had passed the House of Conjmons on 
March 22, 1765, by a vote of five to one, and in the House of 
Lords without even a division, and it was repealed in the 
month of March following, in consequence of the 
arguments presented and, still more, the manifestation 
of deep and determined feeling by the colonies against it. 
But the principle against which the colonies protested was 
not abandoned by the government by the repeal of this 
single act. Up to 1763 taxes had been laid by Parliament on 
the colonies, but not for revenue to the home government, 
but solely for local expenses and as regulations of trade. 

But it was the passage of a resolution in 1764 by the 
British Parliament, after full debate, that it was their right 
to tax the colonies at will, and recommending under the 
power so asserted the laying of a stamp tax upon all writs 
and legal process and mercantile documents, that led to the 



i; 

solemn protest by the colonies addressed to the Crown, and 
their connter assertion that " taxes could not be levied upon 
the people but by their consent in person or by deputation." 

Thus, although the Stamp Act was repealed, the principle 
under which the tax had been imposed, and the claim of 
power it contained, was still insisted upon with a blindness 
and infatuation which nothing but the long abuse of power 
could account for 

Collisions between the officials who represented such 
claims of authority and the people who resisted became 
inevitable and frequent, until a sentiment of discontent 
gradually permeated the minds of the Americans and was 
not confined to the individuals or the localities that were the 
objects and scenes of injustice, but a common cause was cre- 
ated throughout the length and breadth of the colonies, to 
which adhesion grew gradually, but with a grave determina- 
tion, so that tlie injury to any one was felt to be the injury 
of all. 

These three lower counties on the Delaware were not 
governed under a Royal Charter as was Massachusetts and 
mcst of the other colonies, but our forefathers were living 
in happiness and safety under the benignant, wise and gener- 
ous charter of William Penn, the Proprietary. They were 
apparently in the secure enjoyment of all and more than their 
progenitors had left Europe to secure. The promise of Will- 
iam Penn, written from London in April 1681, was indeed 
generous, but it had been more than fulfilled. He had writ- 
ten : " You shall be governed by laws of your own making, 
and live a free, and if you will, a sober and industrious 
people. I shall not usurp the right of any or oppress his 
person. God has furnished me with a better resolution and 
has given me grace to keep it. In short, whatever sober and 
free men can reasonably desire for the security and improve- 
ment of their own happiness I shall heartly comply with." 

How well and faithfully he kept this promise let his 
subsequent charters of privileges to the inhabitants of the 
Province of Pennsylvania and the "Territories," the three 



i8 

lower counties, attest. Not only was every birthright of free- 
born Englishmen amply approved and secured, but a free- 
dom from the rule of classes and privileged orders was 
granted, to which English subjects elsewhere were strangers; 
local self-government in all its particulars and essentials was 
the wise basis, and anticipating those golden words placed 
by the hand of Jefferson nearly a century later in the Dec- 
laration of American Independence — Penn recognized that 
"life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness were 'unalienable 
rights,' and to secure them governments were established 
among men 'deriving their just powers from the consent of 
the governed,' " and so, in 1683, when he met the provincial 
council in which the three lower counties had been united, 
at their request, with the counties of Philadelphia, Bucks 
and Chester, each county having an equal representation of 
nine members, he told them "they might amend, alter or 
add for the public good," and that he was ready to settle such 
foundations as might be for their happiness and the good of 
their posterity. 

It is little to be wondered that the colony so founded in 
reliance upon all that is best in human nature should flourish 
and rapidly attract numbers to share its blessings and benefits. 

Well might Edmund Burke speak of Penn's charter to 
his colonists as "a noble charter of priveleges, by which he 
made the people more free than any people on earth, and 
which by securing both civil and religious liberty caused the 
eyes of the oppressed from all parts of the world to look to 
his counties for relief. This one act of God-like wisdom and 
goodness has settled Penn's counties in a more strong and per- 
manent manner than the wisest regulations could have done 
on any other plan." And the growth was rapid, from 3000 
of Dutch, Swedes and English when Markham, Penn's agent, 
came in 1681, to 4000 when four years afterwards the good 
Pastorius came to found Germantown, to 12,000 in 168S, 
when in honest exultation Penn exclaimed : "I have led the 
greatest colony into America that ever did any man upon a 
private credit, and the most prosperous beginnings are now 



19 

to be found among us.'' At the time of his death in 1718* 
the population was supposed to number 40,000. The testi- 
mony of the venerable Bancroft may be well cited also : "The 
old Proprietary Government in an existence of more than 
ninety years, had now the admiration of the wise through- 
out the world, . by its respect for civil and religious liberty, 
and had kept itself free from the suspicion of having insti- 
gated or approved the obnoxious measures of the British 
ministers, and had maintained the attiutude of mediator 
between Parliament and America." 

Under such a beneficent government Caesar Rodney had 
been born and had lived, taking part in the affairs of the 
communitv in which there was no manifestation of discontent 
or a desire for a change of ruler. 

The population of these counties at the breaking out of 
the War of the Revolution was estimated by the Federal 
Convention of 1783, including negro slaves, at about 35,000, 
and in all the conferences and conventions at any time 
called during the colonial period and in the Continental 
Congress each colony was an equal integer, with an equal 
vote on all questions. Thus, in the Stamp Act Congress, it 
was resolved that the committee of each colony shall have 
one voice only in determining any question that shall arise 
in the Congress, and in the Articles of Confederation of 1778 
of the thirteen States it was provided in Article 5 : No 
State shall be represented in Congress by less than two nor 
more than seven members. In determining questions in the 
United States in Congress assembled each State shall have 
one vote. Similarly, in the convention of 1787, under which 
a more perfect union was formed under the Federal Consti- 
tution, each State had an equal vote in the determination of 
all questions. 

Thus an importance attached to the action and influence 
of this State disproportionate to the mere number of its 
inhabitants, but which has operated always for the promo- 
tion of the welfare of the Union. The character of the 
individuals chosen to represent the freemen of Delaware on 



20 



sundry important occasions in the history of the formation 
of our government, and in the stormy period in which our 
institutions had their birth, has added justly to the influence 
and reputation of the State in the federal councils ; and as 
the stream cannot rise above its source, I am disposed to 
attribute the disposition of our citizens to select wise and 
honorable representatives to the good and substantial ma- 
terial of which the community was composed. 

The Dutch, the Swedes and English were men of sturdy 
integrity aud industrious lives. The churches built by them 
attest their piety to God, and the body of their laws exhibit 
their respect and appreciation of justice among men. 

A sketch of the simple life of our ancestors in Kent 
county will not be out of place here, and by the kindness 
of Mrs. Henry Geddes Banning, of Wilmington, I have been 
allowed to transcribe it from the MSS. of her great-grand- 
father, Thomas Rodney, himself a brave soldier in the 
Revolutionary War, and a younger brother of Caesar 
Rodney. I give it vet'bathn ct literatim. 

' ' The manners and customs of the white people when I 
first remember, were very simple, plain and social. Very 
few foreign articles were used in this part of the country for 
eating, drinking or clothing. Almost every family manu- 
factured their own clothes ; and beef, pork, poultry, milk, 
butter, cheese, wheat, and Indian corn were raised by them- 
selves, served them with fruits of the country, and wild game 
for food ; and cider, small beer, and peach and apple brandy 
for drink. The best families in the country but seldom used 
tea, coffee, chocolate or sugar, for honey was their sweetening. 
The largest farmers at that time did not sow over twenty 
acres of wheat, nor tend more than thirty acres of Indian 
corn, and there was very few of this sort, so that all the 
families in the country had a great deal of idle time, for the 
land being fertile supplied them plentifully by a little labor, 
with all that was necessary, nay with great abundarce, more 
than enough, grudged nothing to those who happened to 



21 

want. Indeed, they seemed to live as it were in concord ; 
for they constantly associated together at one house or an- 
other in considerable numbers, to pla)- and frolic, at which 
times the young people would dance, and the elder ones 
wrestle, run, hop, jump or throw the disc or play at some 
rustic and manly exercises. On Christmas Eve there was an 
universal firing of guns, and travelling round from house to 
house during the holiday, and indeed all winter there was a 
continual frolic at on^ house or another, shooting-matches, 
twelfth-cakes, &c. 

"This manner of life continued until the war commenced 
in 1755, but this occasioned a sudden and universal change 
in the country. Soldiers were raised, the people form'ed into 
militia, great sums of government money were expended, new 
taxes were laid, and a great variety of civil and military offi- 
cers became necessary. Produce became more valuable, &c. , 
&c. , then in a few years the country became engaged in more 
pursuits and put on quite a new appearance, yet this operated 
chiefly on the younger people, and the old habits and customs 
gradually wore off, until they are at length almost forgot ; 
for what little remained till then was expelled by the Revo- 
lution which had naturally wrought a far greater change 
than the former war. ' ' 

From the simple and happy pastoral life thus pictured 
by an eye-witness, Caesar Rodney now emerged and with his 
colleague, Thomas McKean, took his seat in that convention 
known as the Stamp Act Congress, which met in New York, 
in October 1765. I have already read you the objects of that 
convention which was attended by delegates from nine States, 
New Hampshire, Virginia, North Carolina and Georgia not 
being represented but giving their written assent to what 
was done. 

The history of this important congress has never been 
fully written, and the original records of its proceedings are 
doubtless to be found among the unpublished archives of the 
government at Washington, awaiting the day when the uu- 



22 

blushing importunity of place-hunting and the lofty occupa- 
tion it begets of office-peddling, shall have been sufficiently 
intermitted to allow the representive^ of the American people 
time enough to enact measures for the intelligent editing of 
the documentary history of their government, and its publica- 
tion for the instruction and edification of their constituents. 

Happily for his own conscience, Caesar Rodney left no 
personal diary, nor did he attempt any record of his own ser- 
vices or of his daily reflections or criticisms upon his asso- 
ciates and contemporaries, but simply went on doing his duty 
as conscience dictated, and died leaving an untarnished rep- 
utation and no literary sting to discredit those who survived 
him. 

To his care and foresight we owe the procurement and 
preservation of an authenticated copy of the journal of the 
Stamp Act Congress, which was found among his papers by 
his nephew and chief devisee, Caesar Augustus Rodney, after- 
wards Attorney-General of the United States in the adminstra- 
tion of Thomas Jefferson, and who was United States Minis- 
ter Plenipotentiary to Buenos Ayres, where he died in June 
3824. 

This important document was carefully published in 
Niles' ^'Weekly Register" in July 1812. 

In the prefatory editorial the source of the information 
is fully set forth, and Mr. Rodney is described as the "esti- 
mable and patriotic Caesar Rodney, one of the delegates 
and for many years the great prop and stay of Whiggism in 
the lower parts of his native State." 

The MSS. is authenticated by the signature of John 
Cotton, Esq., the Clerk of the Congress, and was accompanied 
by a separate paper in the hand- writing of Mr. Rodney con- 
taining a list of the members. 

The credentials of Rodney and McKean were signed by 
the individual members of the General Assembly of the 
three counties, that body not being in session at the time it 
was necessary to decide upon the question of taking part in 
the Convention. 



23 

The share of Rodney and McKean in this important 
Congress was conspicuous and influential, and the latter was 
selected, together with James Otis of Massachussetts, and 
Thomas Lynch of South Carolina, to prepare a petition to 
the British House of Commons. 

Permit me to draw your attention to the address to the 
King which was adopted by the Congress — because it indi- 
cates the reluctance with which the colonists took any steps 
which might tend to disintegrate the Empire and establish 
themselves in independence. I will read the commencement 
only and conclusion, although the entire document is well 

worthy of perusal. 

\ 

To the King' s most excellent Majesty, most humbly showeth : 

That the inhabitants of these colonies unanimously de- 
voted with the warmest sentiments of duty and affection to 
your sacred person and government, and inviolably attached 
to the present happy establishment of the Protestant succes- 
sion in your illustrious house, and deeply sensible of your 
royal attention to their prosperity and happiness, humbly 
beg leave to approach the throne by representing to your 
majesty that these colonies were originally planted by sub- 
jects of the British crown, who, animated by the love of lib- 
erty, encouraged by your Majesty's royal predecessors, and 
confiding in the public faith, for the enjoyment of all the 
rights and liberties essential to freedom, emigrated from 
their native country to this continent and by their successful 
perseverance in the midst of innumerable dangers and diffi- 
culties, together with a profusion of their blood and treas- 
ure, have happily added these vast and extensive domains to 

the Empire of Great Britain. 

******* 

Then follows a clear and dignified statement of their 
constitutional rights as British subjects, and the petition 
concludes : — 

' ' The invaluable right of taxing ourselves and trial by 
our peers, of which we implore your Majesty's protection, 



24 

are not, wc must hnmbly conceive, nnconstitutional, but 
confirmed by the great Charter of English liberty. On the 
first of these rights the honorable House of Commons 
founded their practice of originating money — a right enjoyed 
by the Kingdom of Ireland, by the clergy of England until 
relinquished by themselves — a right, in fact, which all other 
of your Majesty's English subjects, both within and without 
the realm, have hitherto enjoyed. 

"With hearts therefore impressed with the most indeli- 
ble characters of gratitude to your Majesty and to the mem- 
ory of the Kings of your illustrious house, whose reigns 
have been signally distinguished b>- their auspicious in- 
fluence on the prosperity of the British dominions, and con- 
vinced by the most affecting proofs of your Majesty's 
paternal love to all your people, however distant, and your 
imceasing and benevolent desires to promote their happiness, 
we most humbly beseech your Majesty that you will be gra- 
ciously pleased to take into your royal consideration the 
distresses of your faithful subjects on this continent, and to 
lay the same before your Majesty's Parliament and to aflford 
them such relief as in your royal wisdom their unhappy cir- 
cumstances shall be judged to require." 

******* 

It would seem impossible for a people to frame a suppli- 
cation for simple justice and forbearance from useless op- 
pression in more humble and affectionate phrase, and yet 
strange to say, the "timidity," as Bancroft calls it, or "con- 
science" as the President of the Congress, Brigadier Timothy 
Ruggle'sof Massachusetts, himself styled it, caused the latter 
to refuse to sign the papers for transmission. 

Thomas McKean. in a letter to John Adams, of August 
20, 1815, thus describes the incident : 

"When the business was finished our President would 
not sign the petition and peremptorily refused to assign 
any reason until I pressed him so hard, that at last he 
said 'it was against his conscience,' on which word I rung 



25 

the changes so loud, that a plain challenge was given by hini 
and accepted in the presence of the whole corps, but he de- 
parted the next morning before day without an adieu to any 
of his brothers. * * * * * * 

Mr. Robert Ogden, then speaker of the New Jersey Assembly, 
following the example of the President, declined to sign the 
petitions, although thereby warmly solicited by myself in 
private and also by my father-in-law. Colonel Borden, his 
colleague. 

' ' The consequence of my mentioning this fact, as I re- 
turned to New Castle through New Jersey was to Mr. Ogden 
a burning in effigy in several of the counties, and his removal 
from the office of Speaker at the next meeting of the As- 
sembly, and to me menaces of another challenge." 

Thomas McKean of New Castle, in Delaware, was of 
Irish parentage on both sides, and even before he had at- 
tained his majority became a practicing attorney. 

It is impossible to disconnect his life and labors in the 
public service from that of Csesar Rodney, so long as the lat- 
ter lived. 

Their association and confidential friendship antedated 
their joint services in the Stamp Act Congress, and they appear 
to have supplemented the designs and objects of each other 
throughout in the most zealous and efficient matter, notable 
instances of which I shall proceed to relate. 

Of the reputation and services of Thomas McKean 
to the w^hole country it seems impossible to speak toO' 
highly, and he was the only man who, without intermission, 
served as a member of the Continental Congress from the 
time of its opening in 1774 until after the treaty of peace 
was signed in 1783. 

During the whole of this eventful period he continued to 
represent the three lower counties on the Delaware, although 
in July 1777, he was selected for the high office of Chief Jus- 
tice of Pennsylvania, and ably executed its duties inconjunc- 
c 



26 



tion with his other important public trusts, among which was 
the Presidency of the State of Delaware in 1777. 

As a Judge of the Orphans' Court and Court of Common 
Pleas in New Castle county, in February 1766, he ordered 
the issue and service of the courts' process upon luistamped 
paper and this is believed to be the first court in the colonies by 
whom such an order was made and executed. 

When Rodney and McKean returned to Delaware from 
their attendance on the Stamp Act Congress at New York, 
they were received with high honor and every manifestation 
of respect, and their action in the Congress was approved 
unanimously of the General Assembly, and a vote of thanks 
for their energy and ability was passed. 

Upon the repeal of the Stamp Act in March 1766, Mr. 
Rodney was appointed by the Legislature, together with 
Thomas McKean and George Read, to prepare an address to 
the King expressive of their grateful sentiments for the ac- 
tion of his government, and this paper was marked with the 
sincere and tenacious devotion to the Crown which befitted 
the most attached subjects. 

During the next three years Mr. Rodney was in active 
service as a member of the Legislature and sought unsuccess- 
fully to prohibit the importation of slaves into the province. 

About this time a malady which long had given Mr. Rod- 
ney uneasiness and disfigured him sadly, had so progressed 
that he was obliged to leave home for Philadelphia to obtain 
medical advice. 

By the favor of Mrs. H. G. Banning, who possesses the 
original, I am permitted to read to you the letter to his brother 
Mr. Thomas Rodney, which contains the first information 
that his disease was cancer and considered incurable. 

Philadelphia, June the 7th, 1768. 

Sir: — The morning after I parted with you, I set out 

from Messrs. Wynkoop and drove to New Castle by dinner 

time, and intended the morning following to have gone to 

Chester; but when I ordered my horses in the chariot found 



27 

the largest horse so ill, that we were obliged to stay that day 
at New Castle that he might recruit; but finding he grew 
worse, I borrowed a saddle and bridle of Mr. Maurice and 
set out on the other horse, and left John to take care of the 
chariot and the sick horse, with orders to bring him up as 
soon as he should be able to travel, but have little reason to 
expect he will live. I got to Philadelphia on Saturday, and 
on Monday applied to doctors concerning the sore on my 
nose, who all, upon examination, pronounced it a cancer, and 
that it will be necessary I should go through a small course 
of physick and then to extract it by a costick or by cutting- 
it out, all which (to me) is a dreadful undertaking — and will 
require so much time, that it is impossible for me now to 
determine when you may probably expect to see me in Kent 
again — if ever — as (no doubt) it will be attended with 
danger. I have a great many friends and advisers; some 
advise one thing, some another, some advise me to the 
direction and management of one person, some another, and 
some to go immediately to England ; however, a day or two 
will determine me. I hope you will not neglect to take the 
greatest care of all the business I left you in charge. And 
whenever it shall be necessary, with respect to any busi- 
ness relative to the office, that you will apply to Doctor 
Ridgely, who I make no doubt will readily lend you his 
assistance. I have not time to say any more at present, but 
to request you to remember me kindly to Sally, Billy, and to 
give my compliments to Mr. and Mrs. Vining, the doctor and 
Mrs. Ridgely, to Sally Ridgely, Sally Gorroll, Betsy Fisher 
and all enquiring friends. 

I am with great esteem, yours, 

C.^iSAR Rodney. 

P. S. — I have not as yet heard from John, therefore don't 
know the fate of my horse. Probably you'll know by Mr. 
Banning, who says he shall call at New Castle. 

(Directed.) 

To Mr. Thomas Rodney, at Dover. 

Favor of Mr. Banning. 



28 

A week later he again wrote as follows : 

Philadelphia, June i3tli, 1768. 

Dear Brother: — Yours of the loth of this instant, I 
received by Mr. Cooper, and am pleased to find (by your 
expressions therein) that you have so just a sense of love 
and duty and gratitude, and do not doubt (if I am obliged to 
go to England) that by your diligence and prudent attention 
to business, you will give me sufficient proof of what you 
now only express. The Governor not only joins with the 
rest of my friends in pressing me hard to go to England, but 
of his own accord, assured me that I should have liberty 
to appoint who I pleased to conduct the business of my 
offices in my name during my absence. All my friends 
advised, that, previous to my going to England, I should 
consult Governor Hamilton. I took their advice and have 
been at Bush Hill three or four times. His behaviour to me 
on this occasion was so extremely kind and friendly that I 
shall be wanting, if I do not hold a grateful remembrance of 
it as long us I live. He said it was undoubtedly a cancer, 
and in a most dangerous place, and that he thought my only 
chance was to go to England, but by no means to trust to 
any person here. However in a few minutes after, he arose 
from his chair, took me by the hand and proceeded as 
follows: ' 'Mr. Rodney I have a very particular respect for you, 
and will do everything in my power to serve 5^ou; I have 
brought over some of the same medicines that Guy made use 
of in curing my nose, with his directions for applying them. If 
you will apply to some Doctor to attend you, you shall have 
what you want of them, and I will visit you (myself) every 
day during the operation, that I may be the better able to 
inform you whether they have the same effect with you as 
they had with me, " Perhaps you will think this a greater 
mark of friendship than I had any reason to expect from Mr. 
Hamilton, however it is even so, and to-morrow morning the 
operation is to be begun under the immediate care of Doctor 
Thomas Bond, with the approbation of all my friends here. 



29 

But if this fails of iiiakiiig a cure, and does not put me in a 
worse situation than I now am, I shall certainly go to 
England, after a two or three weeks' visit to my native Kent. 
I shall meet with no delay on account of cash, tho' it will 
necessarily require a large sum. But to conclude, my case is 
truly dangerous, and what will be the event, God only 
knows, I still live in hopes, and still retain my usual flow of 
spirits. My compliments Mr. and Mrs. Vining ; tell Mrs. 
Vining, the cloud now hanging over me, tho' dark and dis- 
mal, may (God willing) one day disperse, and I may have the 
pleasure to carry Colly (who waits with patience) to Dover. 
Give my love to Sally, Billy, etc., and remember me to the 
Doctor, Mrs. Ridgely, Sally Gorrell, Betsy Fisher, and all 
enquiring friends. Pray give the enclosed paper to Doctor 
Ridgely, and at the same time tell him Governor Hamilton 
does not incline to sell his lot, but has left it to Mr. Magan. 
I shall take care to write to you by every opportunity. 
I am your affeptionate Brother, 

C.BSAR Rodney. 

These letters written in the privacy- of domestic inter- 
course and never before published, unconsciously portray 
the fortitude and cheerful courage of this true man ; when 
it is considered that his physician had communicated to him 
what was virtually his sentence of death — not the quick, 
sharp pang, scarcely felt and little heeded in the hour 
of triumph, cheaply purchased with a life — but death by 
inches, the slow advance of an insidious and implacable 
disease. Nothing sensational is displayed, no upbraiding of 
fate or unmanly bewailing, but a simple announcement of the 
dreadful truth, and the conclusion, "my case is truly dan- 
gerous, and what will be the event God only knows ; I still 
live in hopes and still retain my usual flow of spirits." 

His public duties anchored him fast in America, he 
never was allowed to visit England, and the remedies ob- 
tained in Philadelphia seem to have given him some relief 
and caused a temporar>' arrestation of the disease. ut like 



30 

a true soldier thenceforward he marched undismayed, his 
life dedicated only to the performance of his duty, until four- 
teen years after the Great Captain gave the final order of 
recall. 

Mr. Banning, to whom the first letter was entrusted, was 
John Banning, Esq., of Kent county, the record of whose 
patriotic services in various important capacities will be 
found in the minutes of the council of the Delaware State 
from 1776 to 1792, of which he was a member, and lately 
published by order of the Legislature. Among his descend- 
ants now living in the State are the Ridgelys, of Dover, Mr. 
Henry Geddes Banning and Mrs. Sally Ridgdly Elliott, wife 
of Isaac S. Elliott, of Wilmington. 

After his return from Philadelphia, Caaesar Rodney, in 
1769, was chosen Speaker of the Assembly, and as the un- 
settled question between Great Britain and Colonies never per- 
mitted repose, resistance and discontent grew apace, and the 
need of his courageous counsel became more urgent as the 
the arbitrary aggressions of the Crown continued to force the 
reluctant colonists to decide between resistance or unreserved 
and slavish submission. 

The Stamp Act Congress had thus brought about colonial 
union. The vindictive legislation of Great Britain con- 
tinued, and the town of Boston seemed especially marked for 
royal vengeance. The charter of Massachusetts was rudely 
violated in its most essential features; the port of Boston 
was closed to all commerce, and every safeguard to personal 
libertv and local self-government was abrogated. 

Such action served to precipitate the inevitable con- 
flict, and early in 1774, a general Continental Congress of the 
representatives of each colony was recommended by Massa- 
chusetts, and ready response soon came from every quarter. 

No colony moved with more alacrity than Delaware, 
and by none was the manly determination to make the cause 
of Massachusetts their own, and to resist at the threshold all 
measures intended for their subjugation more distinctly and 
clearly avowed. The general meeting of the freeholders and 



31 

inhabitants of New Castle county was at the town of New 
Castle, June 29, 1774, Thomas McKean being their chair- 
man. 

The freeholders and inhabitants of Kent met in Dover, 
on July 20, 1774, and a like meeting was held by the free- 
men of Sussex county, at Lewestown, on July 23d, The 
tenor of the resolutions adopted in each county was substan- 
tially the same, and after the most express and solemn recog- 
nition of the sovereignty of George the Third, and promising- 
due allegiance to his government, recited the various acts of 
Parliamentary oppression against Boston, so dangerous to the 
common cause of America. Each county appointed a commit- 
tee of thirteen members to correspond with similar committees 
in the State and in the sister Colonies, and Caesar Rodney 
was one of the number from Kent. On August ist the three 
counties met in convention at New Castle and Rodney was 
made chairman. 

The resolutions adopted on August 2, 1774, recite the 
history of American grievances with a vigor and dignity 
that characterizes the public utterances of the period. 

It was at once unanimously resolved to instruct the 
deputies then appointed to attend the general Congress, and 
"that they do endeavor to prevail with the deputies from 
other colonies to adopt the folloM'ing or similar reso- 
lutions." 

The length of these resolutions forbids me to read them, 
as they are found in Vol. I, page 667, of the fourth series of 
the American Archives. 

Nowhere is the American case more clearly and une- 
quivocally stated, and I cannot forbear to recite the 7th and 
8th resolutions as indicative of the unselfish action of the 
Delaware freemen and of their lofty determination to main- 
tain the rights of others as well as their own. 

7. That it is the indispensable duty of all the colonies, not 
only to alleviate the imexampled distresses of our brethren 
of Massachusetts Bav, who are suffering in the common 



32 

cause of America, biit to assist them b>- all lawful means in 
removing- their trrievances, and for re-establishing- their con- 
stitutional rights, as well as those of all America, on a solid 
.and permanent foundation. 

8. That it is our fixed, determined and unalterable reso- 
lution, by all lawful ways and means in our power, to main- 
tain, defend and preserve our before-mentioned rights and 
liberties, and that we wall transmit them entire and inviolate 
to our posterit}- ; and, further, that we will adopt and faith- 
fulh- carry into execution, all and singular, such peaceable 
and constitutional measures as have been agreed on h\ this 
Congress. 

The men who led the councils of Delaware w-ere well 
instructed in the English law and lived in obedience to its 
precepts, therefore when the}- met in popular convention 
they recognized "the most eligible mode of endeavoring- to 
procure redress for their grievances would have been through 
their Legislative assembly," but as that body could not be 
convened until September 30th, following, and as the Pro- 
prietary (John Penn) had already refused to convene the Leg- 
islature of Pennsylvania, when so requested for the same 
purpose, the best and most proper mode was b\- this conven- 
tion, and this characteristic resolution is to be found at p. 
897 of the. volume of the American Archives already cited. 
The three deputies to the Continental Congress were Ctesar 
Rodney, Thomas McKean and George Read. 

This Congress met at Philadelphia on September 5, 1774, 
and was composed of 56 delegates, among whom was George 
Washington, of Virginia. Their sessions lasted irntil Octo- 
ber 26, 1774, and their proceedings relate to all the measures 
of Parliament which were considered unconstitutional and 
subversive of the rights and liberties of the colonists as Brit- 
ish subjects. 

Among the remarkable state papers produced by this 
assembly is the "Plan of Association" signed by all the 
deputies, from which I select three of the resolutions, al- 



33 

thouo'li it is difficult to retrain irom la\iii_^- before you the 
noble document entire. 

''To obtain redress of these grievances which threa,ten de- 
struction to the Lives, Liberty, and Property of his Majesty's 
Subjects in North iVmerica, we are of opinion that a Non-Im- 
portation, Non-Consumption, and Non-Exportation Agree- 
ment, faithfirlh- adhered to, will prove the more speedy, 
effectual, and peaceable measure; and therefore we clo, for 
ourselves, and the inhabitants of the several Colonies whom 
we represent, firmly agree and associate, under the Sacred 
ties of Virtue, Honor, and Love of our Country, as follows: 

I. That from and after the first day of December next, 
we will not import into British America, from Great Britian 
or Ireland, any Goods, Wares, or Merchandise, as shall have 
been exported from Great Britian or Ireland; nor will we, 
after that day, import any East India Tea from any part of 
the world; nor any molasses, syrups, paneles, coffee, or pimen- 
to from the British plantations or from Dominica; nor wines 
from Madeira, or the Western Islands; nor foreign Indigo. 

II. That we will neither import nor purchase any slave 
imported after the first day of December ' next; after which 
time we wnll wholly discontinue the slave trade, and wall 
neither be concerned in it ourselves, nor will we hire our 
vessels, nor sell our commodities or manufactures to those 
who are. concerned in it. 

III. As a Non-Consumption x^greement strictly adhered 
to, will be an effectual security for the observation of the 
Non-Importation, we, as above, solemnly agree and associate, 
that from this day we will not purchase or use any tea im- 
ported on account of the East India Compau}-, or any on 
which a duty hath been or shall be placed; and from and 
after the first da}- of March next we will not purchase or use 
any East India tea whatsoever; nor will we, nor shall any 
person for or imder us, purchase or use an)- of those goods, 
wares, or merchandises we have agreed not to import, which 
we shall know, or have cause to suspect, were imported after 



34 

the first da)- of December, except such as come under the rules 
and directions of the tenth Article hereinafter mentioned. 

IV. The earnest desire we have not to injure our fellow 
subjects in Great Britian, Ireland, or the West Indies, induces 
us to suspend a Non-Exportation until the tenth da}' of Sep- 
tember, 1775, at which time, if the said Acts and parts of 
Acts of the British Parliament hereinafter mentioned, are not 
repealed, we will not, directly or indirectly, export any Mer- 
chandise or Commodity whatsoever to Great Britian, Ireland, 
or the West Indies, except Rice to Europe. 

By this we see how gradually the union of the colonies 
was formed — not by any single act or declaration — but by the 
silent and natural growth of the unwritten laws of human 
sympathy and congenial association for noble and worthy 
ends. 

" The sacred ties of virtue, honor and love of country " 
were the strong cords that drew the hearts of our forefathers 
together, and against such influences were arrayed then, as 
now, the mean and mercenary forces of society, trading 
then as now, upon the baser and purchasable elements. 

Unhappy is that nation from whose people is banished a 
belief in the disinterestedness of public service, which is 
naturally accompanied by broad and liberal views, which do 
not measure or test great purposes by constant reference to 
one small object — personal advantage or profit. 

This it is that makes mercenary politicians such unsafe 
leaders, and causes national interests so often to be led to 
their destruction by men of narrow understandings, incapa- 
ble of taking any but mercenary and commercial views of 
questions of governmental policy. 

The Delaware Assembly met at New Castle on March 
13, 1775, and to them Rodney, McKean and Reed, made full 
report of their representative action in the Continental Con- 
gress of October previous, and laid before the Assembly the 
journal of the proceedings of that Congress. 

On the next day these proceedings were deliberated upon 



35 

and nemine cojitra dicente it was resolved that the proceed- 
ings of the Congress, and especially the part therein by the 
Delaware representatives, be approved with thanks. 

On the nth of March, Caesar Rodney, George Reed and 
Thomas McKean were again unanimously chosen to repre- 
sent the government of the three counties at the American 
Congress proposed to be held in the City of Philadelphia, on 
the loth of May next, or at any other time and place with 
full power to them or any fwo of tJiem together with the dele- 
gates from the other American Colonies to concert and agree 
upon such further measures as shall appear to them best cal- 
culated for the accommodation of the unhappy differences 
between Great Britain and the colonies on a constitutional 
foundation which the House most ardently wish for, and that 
they report their proceedings to the House at their next 
meeting. 

It will be observed how carefully all violence of lan- 
guage or intemperance of expression was avoided, and that 
no other settlement than on a " constitutional basis ' ' was 
hinted at. 

And this basis was of course the continuance of colonial 
relations to the British sovereign. At the same session peti- 
tions were however presented from the inhabitants, freemen 
of New Castle and Kent, praying for the establishment of a 
militia and the phraseology of the petition from Kent is no- 
ticeable and highly significant of what was then passing in 
the minds of men. 

"That we conceive a well regulated militia composed of 
gentlemen freeholders, and other freemen, to be not only a 
constitutional right, but natural strength of a free govern- 
ment from the exercise of which a wise people will not ex- 
cuse themselves in time of peace." 

The /Assembly on the 29th of March, carefully prepared 
and considered, "paragraph by paragraph,'' and inscribed 
upon their minutes the following instructions to their '.'Dep- 
uties to the general Congress" to meet May 10, 1776 : 



36 

Instructions to the deputies appointed by this o-overn- 
nient to meet in o-eneral couo;i-ess on the tenth da)' of May 
next : 

I. That in e\-ery act to be done in Congress, \'ou stu- 
dioush- avoid, as you have heretofore done, every thing- dis- 
respectful or offensive to our most gracious Sovereign, or in 
an\- measm-e invasive of his just rights and prerogative. 

II. That you do adhere to those claims and resolutions 
made and agreed upon at the last meeting of the Congress ; 
yet, for the restoration of that harmony with the parent 
state which is so essential to the securit\- and happiness of 
the whole British Empire, and which is so ardently wished 
for b}- this House, you may, on your parts, yield such con- 
tested claims of right as do not apparently belong to the Col- 
onists, or are not essentially necessary to their well being. 

III. If his Majesty should be pleased graciously to ap- 
point any person or persons to treat with the Colonies on the 
present unhappy disputes subsisting between them and the 
parent state, you, or any of you the Congress shall nominate, 
may treat with such person or persons on behalf of the in- 
habitants of this government. 

IV. If the Congress, when formed, shall not in every 
question to be voted by provinces, allow this government an 
equal vote with any other province or government on this 
continent, you are decently but firmly to urge the ri_ght of 
this government to an equal voice in Congress with the other 
Colonies. 

The House adjourned till the fifth da)' of June next. 

But events were moving more rapidly than could be 
provided for by formal resolutions. The Delaware Assembly 
adjourned on March 29th, and in three weeks afterwards the 
battle of Lexington was fought, and 

" By the rude bridge that arched the flood 
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled ; 
* * * 'j^jjg embattled farmers stood 

And fired the shot heard round the world. " 



37 

In June followed the battle of Bunker's Hill, and the 
season for argument and deliberation had passed and hotlv 
pressing for its place came the demand for decisive action. 

Men of action were called for by the times, and men of 
action responded to the call. As a poet of our own dav has 
sung : — 

Wanted, men — 
Not systems fit and wise, 
Not faiths with rigid eyes. 
Not wealth in mountains piled. 
Not power, with gracious smile, 
Not e'en the potent pen — 

Wanted, men ! 

Wanted, deeds — 
Not words of winning note. 
Not thoughts from life remote, 
Not fond religious airs. 
Not sweetly languid prayers, 
Not softly scented creeds- — 

Wanted, deeds ! 

CjEsar Rodney was a man of action in an era of action ; 
born not out of his proper time, but in it ; and, being fitted 
for the hour and its work, he did it well. He was recoe- 
nized, and naturally, at once became influential and im- 
pressive — distinguished for the qualities which were needed 
in the days in which he lived on earth. 

He was possessed of a noble ardor ; his spirit was aflame 
and it never flickered or wavered throughout the long and 
weary conflict that followed. 

He had served in the Continental Congress of 1774 
with Washington ; he knew of Washington's utterance in 
the Virginia Convention early in 1774, when he was dele- 
gated to attend in Philadelphia : — 

"I will raise one thousand men, subsist them at mv 
own expense, and march myself at their head for the relief 
of Boston." 



Moved by patriotic impulse, he had counselled the selec- 
tion of Washington as Commander-in-Chief of the colonial 
forces, and from the beginning to the end of the conflict 
sought to hold up his hands and sustain him at all times and 
in all ways. 

It is to the honor of Caesar Rodney and his native State, 
that he gained and retained to the end the absohite confidence 
of Washington. Thanks be to God, ni)- brother Delawareans, 
thanks be to God, the history of our little commonwealth in 
the war for x^merican independence discloses the name of 
no venal or selfishly ambitious trader in his country's 
woes, and here at home, in the character and traditions of 
men of our own State, we and our children can look for ex- 
emplars of courage and fidelity equal to any in the broad 
land. Their nimibers were few, and the trumpet of local 
and self laudation not so loud as may sometimes have been 
heard in other quarters, but every Delawarean may proudly 
look and ask the whole world to look, upon the unsullied 
record of our revolutionary ancestors, and find there abun- 
dant cause for honest pride and grateful remembrance. 

Caesar Rodney had the ^''Suaviter in modo''' as well as the 
'^r/zV^r in r^. " 

He had valor, but he had that discretion which is its 
better and more unselfish part. He was liberal in his judg- 
ments and generous to his antagonists. Hence his power 
and success in allaying local irritations and disaffections ; 
of composing strifes; of converting opponents into allies, and 
foes into friends. 

I have diligently read all the documents within my 
reach which relate to the action of the inhabitants of these 
counties during the war for independence, and I concur 
in the statement made by our lamented friend Judge William 
G. Whitely, in his address before the Legislature in 1875, 
"that to Rodney more than to any other man in Dela- 
ware do we owe the position which our State and people took 
in that most important contest." 

Three verv interesting and characteristic letters of Caesar 



39 

Rodney addressed to his brother, Captain Thomas Rodne}-, 
at Dover, written during the session of the Continental Con- 
gress at Philadelphia, in September 1775, are to be found in 
Vol. I of the 4th series of the American Archives, and por- 
tray the situation very clearly, and the lively interest and in- 
telligent comprehension he had of the events then transpiring 
in Massachusetts, and the necessary consequences to all the 
colonies. 

The stir of military preparations for a conflict, which 
filled the very air men breathed, but which had not been 
formulated into thoughts, much less into words, began here 
in Delaware before the battle of Lexington. 

Already the preparations for the enrollment and equip- 
ment of the militia had been vigorously carried out, and in 
each county the election of field officers remained only to 
be held, in order to perfect the regimental organizations. 
New Castle county led off" on March 20, 1775, by a meeting 
of ail the company officers, at Christiana bridge, and the 
choice of field officers for two regiments. 
For the Upper Division, 

James McKinley, Colonel. 
James Latimer, Lt. -Colonel. 
Thomas Duff, Major. 
For the Lower Division, 

Thomas Cooch, Colonel. 
Samuel Patterson, Lt. -Colonel. 
Gunning Bedford, Major. 

Kent followed by a convention at Dover, on May 25th, 
of the officers of more than twenty companies and for the 
Upper Regiment were chosen : 

• C.f;sar Rodney, Colonel. 
Thomas Collins, Lt. -Colonel. 
French Battell, Major. 
For the Lower Regiment, 

John Haslet, Colonel. 
William Rhodes, Lt. -Colonel. 
Robert Hodge.s, Major. 



40 

Sussex organized in a convention at Broad Creek 
on Jnne 20, 1775, of which Colonel John Dagworthy was 
made chairman. 

No election of field officers was made, but the minutes 
reported that ' ' military preparations for self-defence against 
the bloody attacks of the infatuated British ministry were 
being carried out with great spirit, and that it was expected 
to have 1500 or more well-trained militia, and the committee 
was endeavoring to obtain the necessary supplies of military 
stores." 

Cccsar Rodney was Speaker of the House at the time he 
was so chosen colonel of the upper regiment of Kent county, 
and there would really seem to have been no limit to his 
readiness to serve in any useful capacity, civil or military, 
and certainly none to the willingness of his fellow citizens tO' 
heap the honors, cares and responsibilities of office upon him. 
The General Assembly in 1777 chose him to be Second 
Justice of the Supreme Court, and subsequently Judge of 
Admiralty. 

He was appointed in 1776 Brigadier-General, and as such 
was on duty with the army under Washington at Trenton 
and remained until February 1777, when he was allowed to 
return home and subsequently was made Major-General. 

On this occasion he received the following letter from 
General Washington: 

"Sir: — Lord Sterling did me the favor of sending to me 
your letter of the eighth instant to him, mentioning your 
cheerfulness to continue in service (though your brigade had 
returned home), and waiting my determination on that head. 
The readiness with which you took the field at the period 
most critical to our affairs, the industry you used in bringing 
out the militia of the Delaware State, and the alertness ob- 
served by }'ou in forwarding on the troops from Trenton, re- 
flect the highest honor on your character, and place your at- 
tachment to the caiise in the most distinguisher^ point of view. 
They claim my sincerest thanks, and I am happy in this op- 



41 • . - 

portiinity of giving them lo you, circumstanced as voii are. 
I see no necessity- in detaining you longer from vour family 
and affairs which no doubt demand your presence and atten- 
tion. Vou have therefore my leave to return." 

Any biography of Rodney must be in substance a chap- 
ter in the history of his State and the confederacv of which 
she was a member, for his unceasing devotion never flagged, 
and, happily, never failed to receive public appreciation. 

The most memorable act in ]\Ir. Rodnev's career must 
now be noticed. Together with George Reed and Thomas 
McKean he had been chosen as one of the Representatives of 
the three loweV counties on the Delaware to the general Con- 
gress to meet at Philadelphia on May lo, 1776, and, as 
usual, accepted the duty. 

I have read to )ou, and I fear at some trial to your pa- 
tience, the expressions of attachment to the Crown which 
marked all the utterances of the colonists through the period 
of growing alienation, the result of which thev might sus- 
pect, but were reluctant to admit. 

The wisest men in the country were most restrained in 
their expressions, and formed their judgments under the 
deepest sense of a responsibility greater than which never 
rested upon a body of representative men. 

Allow me to read to you an extract from a letter ad- 
dressed by George Washington to a friend in the British 
army at Boston, written from Philadelphia, where Wash- 
ington was in attendance upon the Continental Congress as 
a delegate from Virginia. 

After defending the delegates from Massachussetts 
against the charge of being "rebellious," he goes on to say: 

■ "Give me leave to add, and I think I can announce it as 
a fact that it is not the wish or interest of that Government 
(Massachusetts) or any other upon this continent, separately 
or collectively, to set up for independence; but this you may 
at the same time rely on, that none of them will ever sub- 

D 



42 

mit to the loss of those valuable rights and privileges which 
are essential to the happiness of any free State, and without 
which life, liberty and property, are rendered totally 
insecure. " 

And he continues : ' 'But I have done. I was involuntarily 
lead into a short discussion of this subject by your remarks on 
the conduct of the Boston people, and your opinion of their 
wishes to set up for independence. / am zvell satisfied that 
no such thing is desired by any thinking man in all North 
America ! On the contrary, that it is the ardent wish of the 
warmest advocates of liberty that peace and tranquilit}' upon 
constitutional grounds may be restored and ci.vil discord pre- 
vented. ' ' 

Washington wrote these words on the 9th of October 
1774, and yet on the 15th of June following he was, on 
motion of Thomas Johnson of Maryland, seconded by John 
Adams of Massachusetts, elected by the unanimous vote of the 
Continental Congress Commander-in-Chief of the armies of 
the United Colonies, and at once accepted the duty and set 
out for New England, 

But while determined to resist subjugation and loss of 
liberty, the hope was still widely prevalent among the colo- 
nists that some settlement on " a constitutional basis" as it 
was styled in the instructions to their deputies by the Dela- 
ware Assembly, might still be secured without resort to the 
dread arbitrament of war. 

The history of that period contains abundant illustra- 
tions of the independenceof the judgment of the representatives 
of the people, and the frank avowal of opinions which at the 
time were often unpopular but proclaimed nevertheless con- 
scientiously and fearlessly. 

He is the true public counsellor who will utter vera pro 
gratis^ and who may displease, but never will deceive the 
people who trust him. 

But equally with independent judgment and individu- 
ality in process of thought, we find splendid proof of self- 



43 

subordination and self-control which, when personal opinion 
and judgment has been over-ruled by a majority, are not to 
be deterred, by a false pride or narrow egotism, from lending 
cordial support to the measures which are the outcome of free 
and unfettered conference. 

Deliberation has its proper season, decision must follow, 
and action is the final and necessary test. 

In the perilous days of 1776 the colonists hesitated long, 
and sincerel}' sought to avert the necessity of making the 
momentous decision to which they had most reluctlantly been 
driven. 

The doubts were many and natural, the "hopes and fears 
that conquer hope," were indeed "an indistinguishable 
throng, ' ' and invested with such a trust can it be wondered 
that hesitation to take the final plunge, to "cross the Rubicon" 
agitated the souls of the forty-eight earnest patriots, who 
assembled in the Continental Congress, at Philadelphia, in 
May 1776? 

As true and faithful patriots as an}- in the land were 
those members of the Congress who opposed the resolution 
to declare independence, or to sign the declaration when the 
resolution had been adopted. 

There is no authentic report or record of the debates, and 
even the minutes of the proceedings in the secret, or in the 
public journal of proceedings are imperfect, fragmentary and 
palpably defective. 

I possess a copy of the secret journals of the Continental 
Congress from its first meeting. May 10, 1775, until the disso- 
lution of the Confederation by the adoption of the present 
Constitution of the United States. 

Much confusion, contradiction, and no little misrepre- 
sentation, have naturally been the consequences of the publi- 
cation of their recollections by individual members communi- 
cated many years after the occurrences and professing to relate 
their own share, and the share of others in the exciting 
transactions. 

The following resolution, adopted November 9, 1775, 



44 

will show how stringently it was sought to maintain 
secrecy : — 

Resolved^ That every member of this Congress consider 
himself, under the ties of virtue, honor and love of his coun- 
try, not to divulge, directly or indirectly, any matter or 
thing agitated or debated in Congress before the same shall 
have been detennined in Congress ; nor any matter deter- 
mined in Congress which a majority of the Congress shall 
order to be kept secret; and that if any member shall violate 
this agreement he shall be expelled from this Congress and 
deemed an enemy to the liberties of America and liable to 
be treated as such; and that every member signify his assent 
to this agreement by signing the same." 

Caesar Rodney died in June 1784, soon after the inde- 
pendence of his country had been achieved, and during 
the struggle he was too much absorbed in gaining the victory 
to think of outlining his own laudation or preserving the 
muniments of his title to the applause and gratitude of man- 
kind. 

He left no memoranda or written account of the pro- 
ceedings nor of the part he bore therein, and to the testimony 
of others we must resort to do his memory justice, and for- 
tunately it is explicit and indubitable. 

His mind was much disturbed by the conflict of argu- 
ments that presented themselves, and it is fairly pictured in 
an account written by his brother, Colonel Thomas Rodney, 
and which I have been permitted to transcribe from the 
original manuscript. 

"In the year 1776, when independence began to be agi- 
tated in Congress, General Rodney, who, with Mr. McKean 
and Mr. Read, then representing Delaware in the Congress, 
came home to consult his friends and constituents on that 
important question. 

"He communicated the matter to his brother. Colonel 
Rodney, and observed that lie had a great deal at stake, and 



45 

that almost all his old friends in Congress were against it, 
particnlarh- Andrew Allen, John Dickson, Robert Morris 
and his colleague, George Read, and that it must of neces- 
sity eventually injure the proprietor and all his friends, for 
whom he had a very great friendship and regard ; that in 
every point of view the question was important, and it would 
be difficult to say what might be best; that on one side stood 
a doubtful experience and a bloody war, and on the other 
unconditional submission to the power of Great Britain ; that 
those who were against deciding now argued that there was 
yet a possibilit)- of reconciliation on constitutional princi- 
ples, but if we declared ourselves independent all expecta- 
tions of reconciliation would be cut off. On the other side, 
he argued that while we continued in our present situation 
no foreign nation could enter into alliance with us or afford 
us an}- public friendship ; that all our dependence being on 
foreign firearms, ammunition and other supplies, we had no 
way to obtain them but in a clandestine manner, which 
could not possibly enable us to oppose tlie power of Great 
Britain ; that she was exerting herself in ever}- part of 
Europe to prevent our getting supplies ; that she had de- 
clared us out of her protection, and was making every kind 
of exertion in her power to reduce us to unconditional 
submission ; that all her conduct so fully induced this inten- 
tion that no hope of reconciliation on constitutional princi- 
ples could possibh- remain." 

With such contending forces in his mind, Mr. Rodney 
had left Philadelphia, where Congress was in session, and 
was actively exerting himself in Delaware to organize the 
community into military efficiency to subdue discontents and 
promote harnion\- of action in the cause of libert}-. 

Whilst he was so occupied in Kent and Sussex counties, 
the issue proclaiming the colonies independent was made in 
Congress, where Thomas McKean and George Read were in 
attendance, and their views were not in accord on this vital 
question. 



46 

On June 7th Richard Henry Lee, of Virginia, offered 
a resolution, "that the United States are, and ought to be, 
free and independent States, and that political connection 
with Great Britain ought to be dissolved." 

This resolution was discussed with closed doors and 
passed the next day by the very close vote of seven States to 
six. 

The secret journal contains no note whatever of this 
resolution, nor of the appointment of the committee of 
which Thomas Jefferson was the chairman, to prepare a 
Declaration of Independence. 

It was felt that unanimity was so requisite that the 
determination of the question was postponed until July ist. 
On July ist a vote was again taken, and nine colonies voted 
in favor and Pennsylvania and South Carolina against it. 

The vote of Delaware was not cast, because McKean 
and Read voted on opposite sides, and the delegates from New 
York were excused from voting by reason of the doubtful 
nature of their instructions. 

It was at this juncture that Thomas McKean, who 
strongly advocated the Declaration of Independence, dis- 
patched a mounted messenger to ride post-haste to Dover for 
Caesar Rodney, and bid him speed to Philadelphia, where on 
the 4th of July, the question was to be finally voted upon 
and determined. 

I can discover no entry in the secret joiirnal under any 
other dates between June 24th and July 17th, except July 8th 
and nth (neither of which minutes contains any reference 
to the question of independence), either of Lee's resolution 
nor the declaration committed to Jefferson and his four asso- 
ciates for preparation. 

But under the date of 19th of July the following resolu- 
tion is recorded: 

"That the declaration passed on the 4th, be fairly en- 
grossed on parchment, with the title and style of ' The 
UNANIMOUS Declaration of the thirteen United States 
OF America,' and that the same, when engrossed, be signed 
by every member of Congress." 



47 

On the 2d of August the minutes state: "The Declara- 
tion of Independence being engrossed and compared at the 
table was signed by the members." 

This last statement is inaccurate and misleading, as it is 
certain that several members whose names appear upon 
the document did not become members until the month of 
November following, so that the time when the respective 
signatures were made is not authenticated and many subse- 
quently signed the Declaration who had voted against its 
adoption. But the share of our patriot, Caesar Rodney, is 
the point now under examination. Eighty long "miles 
lay between Dover in Delaware and Philadelphia. Mr. 
McKean's messenger could not have been dispatched until 
late in the afternoon of July ist, after the adjournment, and 
it must have been a remarkable horse or a relay that could 
bring him to Dover before the night of July 2d. 

At one of his farms, "Byfield" or "Poplar Grove," 
several miles out from Dover, he must have found Mr. Rod- 
ney, and when McKean's message was received, you may 
know how little time was there for dainty preparation, barely 
enough for tightening of saddle girths and buckling on of 
spurs, before the good horse stood ready to be mounted, and 
our hero began his immortal ride on that hot and dusty Jnly 
day, to carry into the Congress of the Colonies the vote he 
held in trust for the people of Delaware, and which was 
needed to make the Declaration of American Independence 
the imanimous act of thirteen united States. 

More than a century has rolled by since that eventful 
ride ; rider and steed have long since turned to dust, but the 
echoes of those flying hoofs will reverberate in American ears 
like the footfalls of fate, 

"Far on in summers that we shall not see," 

and the great heart of the nation will throb with emotion 
when the stor>' is told, and told again, of the ride of Rodney 
bearing the message of the little State to her sisters in a glo- 
rious confederacy. 



48 

The genius of Longfellow and the skill of the sculptor 
have aided to perpetuate in verse and marble the memory of 
Paul Revere, of Boston, "the messenger of the Revolution," 
and his midnight ride before the battles of Concord and 
Lexington. 

I rejoice that such just tribute should be rendered, nor 
would I take one leaf from that patriot's chaplet, nay, indeed 
would point to the example of the people of Massachusetts in 
thus commemorating, as is their wont, one of their own 
citizens, as worth)- of being followed in this State, and 
it may well be asked if the ride of Paul Revere has been so 
kept in men's memories, why should not the infinitely greater 
and more important service of Rodne>- to the united colonies 
be even more impressively marked by us? 

Within a few days a letter has been placed in my hands 
by Mr. John M. C. Rodney, of Wilmington, addressed to his 
grandfather, Caesar Augustus Rodne\-, b\- Thomas McKean, 
dated at Philadelphia, August 22, 1813, which has never 
been published, although a letter of similar tenor was 
written by Mr. McKean to John Adams, in January 1814, 
and is to be found in the lotli volume of Mr. Adams' 
works. From the absence of any note or commentary by 
Mr. Adams on Mr. McKean's statements, it may be assumed 
that he concurred in them. 

But here is Mr. McKean's account of his own and Caesar 
Rodney's vote for the Declaration of Independence, or the 
resolution to declare independence on Julv 4, 1776: 

Philadelphia, Aug. 22, 1813. 

Dear Sir : — Your favor of the 2 2d last month, with a 
copy of the journal of the Congress at New York, in October 
1765, printed in the Baltimore ''Register," came safe to 
hand. Not having heard of this publication, I had the pro- 
ceedings of that body — not the whole — reprinted here about 
two months ago, from a copy I found in the ist vol. of 
"American Tracts," contained in four volumes octavo, edi- 
ted by L Almon, of London, in 1767. Such an important 



49 

transaction should not be unknown to the future historian. 
I recollect what passed in Congress in the beginning of July 
1776 respecting independence; it was not as you have con- 
ceived. On Monda\-, the ist of July, the question was taken 
in the committee of the whole, when the State of Pennsyl- 
vania, represented b}- seven gentlemen then present, voted 
against it. Delaware, having then onh- two representatives 
present, was divided ; all the other vStates voted in favor of 
it. Whereupon, without dela>-, I sent an express, at my own 
private expense, for \our honored uncle, Caesar Rodney, 
Bsquire, the remaining member for Delaware, whom I met 
at the state house door, in his bo'ots and spurs, as the mem- 
bers were assembling. After a friendh' salutation, without a 
word on the business, we went into the hall of Congress 
together, and found we were among the latest. Proceedings 
immediateh- commenced, and after a few minutes the great 
question was put. When the vote for Delaware was called, 
your uncle arose and said: ''As I believe the voice of my 
constituents and of all sensible and honest men is in favor of 
independence my own judgment concurs with them, I vote 
for independence," or in words to the same effect. The 
State of Pennsylvania on the 4th of July (there being only 
five members present, Messrs. Dickinson and Morris, who 
had in the committee of the whole voted against independ- 
ence, were absent,) \oted for it ; three to two, Me.s.srs. Will- 
ing and Humphries in the negative. Unanimity in the thir- 
teen States, an all important point in so great an occassion, 
was thus obtained ; the dissention of a single State might 
have produced \er}- dangerous consequences. 

Xow that I am on this subject, I will tell you some 
truths not generally known. In the printed public journal of 
Congress for 1776, Vol. 2, it would appear that the Declara- 
tion of Independence was signed on the 4th of July by the 
the members whose names are there inserted, but the fact is 
not so, for no person signed it on that day, nor for many days 
after, and among the names subscribed, one was against it, 
Mr. Read, and seven were not in Congress on that day, 



50 

namely, Messrs. Morris, Rush, Clymer, Smith, Taylor, and 
Ross, of Pennsylvania, and Mr. Thornton, of New Hamp- 
shire, nor were the six gentlemen last named at that time 
members; the five for Pennsylvania were appointed delegates 
by the convention of that State on the 20th of July, and ]\Ir. 
Thornton entered Congress for the first time on the 4th of 
November following ; when the names of Henry Wisner, of 
New York, and Thomas McKean, of Delaware, not printed 
as subscribers, though both were present and voted for inde- 
pendence. Here false colors are certainly hung out; there 
is culpability somewhere. What I can offer as an apology or 
explanation is, that on the 4th of July, 1776, the Declaration 
of Independence was ordered to be engrossed in parchment, 
and then to be signed, and I have been told that a resolve 
had passed a few days after and was entered on the secret 
journal, that no person should have a seat in Congress during 
that year until he should have signed the declaration, in 
order, as I have been given to understand, to prevent traitors 
or spies from worming themselves among us. I was not in 
Congress after the 4th for some months, having marched 
with my regiment of associators of this city, as Colonel, to 
support General Washington, until a flying camp of ten 
thousand men was completed. When the associators were 
discharged I returned to Philadelphia, took my seat in Con- 
gress and then signed the declaration on parchment. Two 
days after I went to New Castle, joined the convention for 
forming a constitution for the future government of the State 
of Delaware, having been elected a member of New Castle 
county, which I wrote in a tavern without a book or any 
assistance. You may rely on the accuracy of the foregoing 
relation. It is full time to print and publish the secret jour- 
nal of Congress during the revolution. I have thus answered 
your request, and trust it may reform errors. Accept, 
dear sir, my best wishes for your happiness. 

Thos. MqKean. 
Caesar Augustus Rodney, Esquire. 



51 

I have a fac-simile of the Declaration of Independence 
upon which the names of the Delaware representatives all 
three appear, but in the first volume of the Laws of Dela- 
ware, at page 78 of the appendix, the declaration and the 
names of the signers are printed and that of Thomas Mc- 
Kean is omitted. It is true that at the end of the volume, 
in type so small as to be almost illegible, in the addenda et 
errata^ an explanation is given, but as the volume of the 
laws was not published until 1797, it is proper that so serious 
and unjustifiable an omission should be emphatically cor- 
rected. 

Mr. McKean's own letters are ample evidence of the 
fact, not only of his mere vote and signature, but that to his 
energy and influence the presence of Rodney at the supreme 
moment was in large measure due. 

On July 27, 1776, the Delaware Assembly met and 
took into consideration the resolution of Congress for carry- 
ing out the Declaration of Independence and suppressing all 
authority of Great Britain and establishing a government 
upon the authority of the people. 

A convention was called consisting of ten delegates 
from each county to meet in convention at New Castle on 
the 27th of August. 

This convention met at New Castle on August 27, 1776, 
and agreed upon a constitution of the government of The 
Delaware State, formerly styled the Government of the 
Counties of New Castle, Kent and Sussex upon Delaware. 

This constitution, on September 20, 1776, and a notable 
Declaration of Rights and Fundamental Rules of the Dela- 
ware State, was promulgated September 11, 1776. 

The provisions of this document are well worthy of 
study, and it will be found in full on page 79 of the ap- 
pendix to the first volume of the Delaware Laws. 

Of this convention George Read was president and 
James Booth, secretary. 

If, as Mr. McKean states in the letter I read to you 
just now, he "wrote this constitution in a tavern in New 



Castle, without a book or any assistance," it is a monument 
alike to his powers as a draughtsman and his knowledge of 
the common law of England. 

In December 1777 Mr. Rodne)- was again chosen a Rep- 
resentative in the Continental Congress, thus combining 
civil with military duty, and performing both with ceaseless 
activity. This was the rule and not the exception. Thomas 
McKean's signature to the Declaration of Independence was 
delayed several months, because he had to march at the head 
of his regiment before the instrument could be engrossed. 
The minutes of the Delaware Council in January 1777, show 
that a-messenger was dispatched with letters from the speaker 
to Colonel Collins and Captain Richard Bassett, members of 
the Council, requiring their attendance, if consistent, with the 
service they were then engaged in in the army under 
General Washington. 

The geographical ;?ositi3n of the peninsula on which the 
State of Delaware lies, renders the territory between the 
two great bays of the Delaware and Chesapeake, penetrated 
at countless points b\' estuaries, peculiarly assailable. 

Few indeed were the homesteads which were not liable 
to sudden night attacks and depredation by parties landed 
from British armed vessels. 

The strategetical significance of the peninsula in those 
early days of imperfect and difficult lines of inland communi- 
cation and transportation can well be comprehended, and the 
enemy having complete control of the water approaches, it 
became a cause of constant anxiety with Washington and his 
compatriots to anticipate and thwart their plans of attack. 

The inhabitants of lower Delaware were peculiarly ex- 
posed, and were left entirely to their own means of protection. 

We had no nav>' and I have been unable to discover 
that any anned forces from the Continental armies were ever 
during the war detailed for their defence and shall presently 
refer to the number of troops recruited for the C(j[ntinental 
armies from this State, thus lessening their power for local 
self-defence. As early as Ma\' 10, 1776, Congress commu- 



53 

nicated to General Wasliintrton the results of an encounter 
in the Delaware River in which the British men-of-war, the 
Roebuck of 44 j^uns and the Liverpool of 24 guns, were 
driven by the fleet of armed boats called crondolas from the 
mouth of Christiana Creek down to Reedy Island. 

But as these armed boats were maintained chiefly for the 
defence of the port of Philadelphia, they did nothing to pro- 
tect the inhabitants of Lewes and other points in the lower 
Delaware. I find a letter from Col. Haslet to the Congress 
written from Lewes on April 9th, reporting the capture of a 
lieutenant and three soldiers from the Roebuck, thev having 
been off" on some expedition and driven on shore. 

In his interesting and valuable compilation of the life 
and letters of George Read, Mr. William T. Read has pub- 
lished a letter written by Washington's order to General 
Read, notifying him that a fleet of thirty-six sail had just 
left Staten Island to effect an union with Lord Howe and 
seeking information as to their point of landing. 

Their extensive water front was a constant invitation to 
attacks and emboldened the British emissaries and sympa- 
thizers. British vessels patrolled Delaware Bay, holding fre- 
quent communication with the shore, landing at night and 
causing terror to the inhabitants. Mr. McKean wrote to John 
Adams that when after the landing of General Howe at the 
head of the Elk River in August 1777, he (McKean) was 
excuting the duties of the President of Delaware, that he 
" was hnnted like a fox," was compelled to move his family 
five times in a few months, and at last hid them in a little 
log hou.se on the banks of the Susquehanna, from whence 
they were soon obliged to move from fear of the Indians. 

So open to assatilt from the sea" was the peninsula, and 
liable to be occupied and made the base of hostile expeditions, 
that in 1781 when the expedition under Benedict Arnold was 
being fitted out at New York, and with which he so ruthlessly 
ravaged the country adjacent to the Rappahannock and James 
rivers in Virginia, it was feared that the landing would be 
on this peninsula; whereupon to prevent its occupation bv the 



54 

enemy, Congress actually decided that the only measure was 
to denude the region in question of all its live stock, provi- 
sions and supplies, and starve the inhabitants in order to 
deprive the enemy of support in case they should decide to 
land. 

A regiment of horse under Colonel Morland was 
charged with the execution of this order of devastation, but 
Rodney's arrival in Philadelphia and his representations and 
stout resistance caused a modification of the order and a re- 
duction of the force to a single company. This company 
was ordered not to proceed further than Christiana bridge 
until the commander should have personally waited upon 
President Rodney at Dover and President Tilghman on the 
eastern shore of Maryland, and had learned their judgments 
in the matter, by which he was to be governed. This was 
the last of the proposition to desolate our own territory by 
the forces of our own government. 

Although this liability to invasion all along our ex- 
tended water front caused great anxiety and much ground- 
less suspicion, and gave rise to many wild rumors of insurrec- 
tion against colonial authority, yet I am bound to say that 
the records of these times, so far as I have read them, dis- 
close a great alertness on the part of the colonists and prompt 
and vigorous investigation, which never ended in any very 
important discovery of danger. 

Thus I find the case of Mr. Robert Holliday was con- 
sidered of sufficient importance to record it in the American 
Archives, and its recital may give not an unfair idea of the 
action of the patriots of Kent towards suspected persons. On 
May 2, 1775, the Committee of Inspection at Dover had laid 
before them a letter from the President of the Committee on 
Correspondence, as follows, which may amuse as well as in- 
struct as to the condition of affairs: 

To the Coi7imitiee of Correspondence for Kent county^ on Del- 
aware: 
' 'I acknowledge to have wrote a piece (and did not sign 

it), since said to be an extract of a letter from Kent county, 



55 

on Delaware, published in Humphrey's "Ledger," No. 3. It 
was not dated from an)' place, and is somewhat altered from 
the original. I folded it up and directed the same to Joshua 
Fisher and sons. I had no intention to have it published, 
and further let them know the author thought best it should 
not be published, nor did I think they would. I am sincerely 
sorry I ever wrote it as also for its being published, and hope 
I may be excused for this my first breach in this way, and I 
intend it shall be the last. Robert Holliday." 

Resolved 2uianimously^ That this be not satisfactory, 
and that Mr, HoUiday be requested to attend the Committee 
at their next meeting, on Tuesday the ninth instant, then to 
give further satisfaction for the gross misinterpretation of the 
people of this country, by said letter, from which an extract 
was published in Humphrey's " Ledger." 

Tuesday, May 9th, P. M. 

The committee met according to adjournment, when 
Mr. Holliday appeared and offered to make the necessary 
concessions for his conduct. 

On motion. Resolved^ That a committee be appointed to 
draw up Mr. HoUiday' s concessions in writing. 

This being done, Mr. Holliday waited on the committee 
,with his concessions, drawn up in the form of an address, as 
follows: 

To the Committee of Inspection for Kent County ^on Delaivare: 

Gentlemen: — With sorrow and contrition for my weak- 
ness and folly, I confess myself the author of the letter from 
which an extract was published in the third number of 
Humphrey's "Ledger," said to be from Kent county, on 
Delaware, but at the same time do declare it was published 
without my consent, and not without some alterations. 

I am now convinced the political sentiments therein 
contained were founded in the grossest errors, more es- 
pecially that malignant insinuation that " if the King's 



^6 



standard were now erected nine out ot ten would repair to 
it," conld not have been suggested but from the deepest in- 
sinuation. True, indeed, it is the people of this' country 
have ever shown a zealous attachment to his Majesty's per- 
son and government, and whenever he raised his standard in 
a just cause were ready to flock to it ; but let the severe ac- 
count I now render to an injured people witness to the world 
that none are more ready to oppose tyranny or to be first in 
the cause of liberty than the inhabitants of Kent county. 

Conscious that I can render no satisfaction adequate to 
the injuries done my country, I can onh' beg the forgiveness 
of mv countrymen upon those principles of humanity which 
mav induce th^m to consider the frailty of human nature. 
And I do profess and promise that I will never again oppose 
those laudable measures necessarily adopted by n>y country- 
men for the preservation of American freedom, but will co- 
operate with them to the utmost of my abilities in their vir- 
tuous struggle for liberty, so far as is consistent with m\- 
religious principles. Robert Holliday. 

May 9, 1775. 

Voted satisfactory. 

Published bv order of the committee. 

Thomas Nixon, Jr., Clerk. 

Another recorded case in Sussex was for the alleged 
selling of some few ounces of tea from a canister, and 
some words deemed disrespectful to the authorities, but I can 
iind no report of armed resistance to the local authorities^ nor 
do I think the temper of the times, nor the disposition of the 
inhabitants could have made this region a health)- or a happy 
home for the friends of King George after the war com- 
menced. 

When the Rodnews came here from England, in 16S2, 
thev brousfht with them famih- names, famih- traditions, and 
the military coat of arms of their ancestors. 

I have here an emblazoned copy; it consists of an eagle 
rising, as the crest, with three eagles displayed on the shield 
and the legend, ''Non gencrant Aquihe Colujubas.^'' 



57 

"Eagles do not beg-et doves," and assuredly there was 
much more of the eagle than the dove in Ctesar Rodney, 
and I suspect the same might be said of the great body of 
his compatriots. 

The great American eagle has never been noted for 
progeny of a dove-like character. 

The Rodney family, on both sides of the Atlantic, had 
the meaning of this fierce emblem and motto running in 
their blood. During the same years that Caesar Rodney was 
lending himself, heart and soul, to beat back British oppres- 
sion from these shores, his kinsman, George Brydges Rodney,, 
Baron and Admiral Rodney, was a distinguished officer in the 
British navy, and in 1781 encountered and wholly defeated 
the French fleet under Count de Grasse in the West Indies, 

It is also a fact, not without interest to Delaware, that the 
father of the pious, venerated late Bishop Lee of this State,, 
was a midshipman in the British navy, and engaged in the 
battle referred to. 

The name George Brydges Rodney descended lineally to 
our late venerable fellow citizen in New Castle, a descendant 
in the same degree as Csesar Rodney, from William, the first 
comer. 

On August 25, 1777, when Sir William Howe made- 
his landing at the head of the Elk river, General Rodnev 
was ordered b}- Washington, who had his headquarters then 
at Wilmington, to gather his Delaware troops in close prox- 
imity to the enemy, to hang upon his flank, observe and re- 
port his movements, harrass his outposts, and protect the 
surrounding country from marauding parties. 

By order of General Rodney General Maxwell and a 
body of horse were posted at Cooch's mill, near the foot of 
Iron Hill, and another body of horse was posted at Aitkens' 
tavern to reconnoitre. 

After an intervaew with General Washington at Wil- 
mington Rodney was ordered to return to Middletown and 
await the arrival of a battalion of Maryland troops under 
Colonel Richardson. 
E 



58 

This comprehensive and dangerons service Rodney pro- 
ceeded to execnte with his accustomed vigor, passing person- 
ally from point to point within his field of duty. 

From the unpublished papers on file in the Department 
of State at Washington, I have been able to procure copies of 
three of Rodney's letters written at the time to General 
Washington, which will graphically convey to you the 
activity of the service of Rodney and the Delaware militia, 
and indicate his relations to his Commander-in-Chief at a 
critical period. 

[Cesar Rodney to General Washington.] 

NoxoNTON, Sept. 4th, 1777. 
Dear General: — I took post in this place on Tuesday 
about 10 o'clock, being the most secure considering my forces 
not being joined as yet by more than forty or fifty of the 
New Castle militia, I have some more than four hund- 
red all but those few above mentioned from Kent, I 
have have kept out scontir.g parties rather more than 
equal to the force I now have, and my light horse are 
every day within view of the enemy. The night before last 
they exchanged shot with and alarmed their camp at Canon 
tavern, and last night did the same at Aitkens' tavern. I 
have now two scouting parties of foot out, one of 20 and another 
•of 50, the light horse just going out again. I intend, in order 
be the more convenient for this business, to move to Middle- 
town to-morrow, and am in great hopes shall be joined in a 
few days by the militia from Maryland and this State, hav- 
ing advised Col. Gist of your instructions and my situation 
for that piirpose. I am afraid the New Castle militia are so 
intercepted as not to have it in their power to get to me. 
Your deserters and our prisoners have been into me, these, 
'Considering the difficulty of sending to Wilmington, I have 
took out and given orders for safe keeping, indeed I have two 
of them at work repairing our arms in that county. From 
these deserters, from the view my parties ha\-e had of the 
enemv, and from some landholders of this neighborhood who 



59 

had been surprised into their camp and last night released, 
they seem determined to push immediately for Pliila. Some 
of those last mentioned say the officers, upon being told that 
you had thirty thousand men under your command and 
could have as many militia more as you would be pleased to 
ask, said they wished most sincerely you had 100,000. I wish, 
hope, and verily believe, you have enough to frustrate the 
villianous attempts of those enimies of mankind who are a 
pest to good society. 

I am, dear sir, your most obedient, humble servant, 

C-5;sAR Rodney. 

P. S. — One of my scouting parties came in this minute 
and the officer reports the enemy were striking their tents at 
Aitkens' tavern and preparing to march toward Christiana 
bridge at 7 o'clock this morning. C. R. 

[C-5iSAR Rodney to General Washington.] 

MiDDLETOWN, September 6th, 1777. 
Dear General: — Immediately on the receival of \'our 
letter of yesterday I dispatched one of my light horse with 
yours to Col. Richardson, who he fortunately found at the 
head of Sassafras. By the same hand I wrote to Col. Gist to 
obtain and give me the best information of the mo\'ements of 
the enemy's fleet, and have inclosed you his letter to me 01? 
■on that head. He mentions the rising and imboding of some 
tories, and refers to another letter sent herewith as to those 
mentioned to be in Kent on Delaware. I am apprehensive it 
must be, without foundation, because I have very good intelli- 
gence from that quarter every day, and have heard nothing 
of it. When I arrived here yesterday was informed b}' a 
number of people that four hundred of the enemy had 
landed that morning at Town Point, the farthest point of land 
between Elk and Boheamy, I immediately sent a party off 
that way. The officer has returned and reports that he was 
down on the point and all through that neck, and that there 
were none of the enemy to be seen. I have a party of foot 
just setting out to take a view of the enemy about Aitkens' 



6o 



tavern, where I am informed they still lie. I had forgot to 
tell you that the officer of the horse informed me he took a 
view of the Elk river, and that he saw but three or four 
vessels, small vessels of war. Before I left Wilmington I 
drew five boxes of cartridges; could not then obtain a wagon 
to bring them. The President promised to have them sent 
immediately; however, by some means or other, they are not 
come; for want of them I am much distressed, not having 
more than four rounds. I think the New Castle militia now 
may, and hope they will join me. 

Sir, your most obedient, humble servant, 

Cksar Rodney. 
P. S. — A person just come from Kent on Delaware, 
says there is a report there that a number of tories on the 
borders of that count}^ and Maryland have embodied, that 
some of them are taken, and that it is believed they were 
encouraged to it by the Methodists, many of whose preachers 
are in that quarter. 

[C^SAR Rodney to General Washington. 1 

NoxoNTON, September 9th, 1777. 
I am here in a disagreeable situation, unable to render 
you and the States those services T both wished and expected. 
A few days ago I moved from this to Middletown in order 
to induce the New Castle militia in this quarter, who had 
shown great backwardness, to turn out, especially as by that 
move most of their farms and property were covered. How- 
ever, all this has answered no purpose, for, though I believe 
most of their officers have been vigilant, but very few have 
come in at all, and those few who made their appearance in 
the morning took the liberty of returning, contrary to their 
orders, in the evening. Their increasing the duty and setting 
so bad an example to the troops from Kent, about four hun- 
dred in number and the only troops I had with me, brought 
about so general discontent and uneasiness, especially as 
they were more immediately defending the property of those 
people, as caused them in great numbers to leave me; though 



6i 



I must say the officers did all they could to prevent it. 
Finding this the case, paid Colonel Gist a visit myself to 
know his situation and when it might be possible for him to 
move forward with Colonel Richardson's battalion and the 
militia of the Maryland eastern shore, who let me know he 
was doing all he could to collect them and would move for- 
ward as soon as he should have it in his power. The two 
upper battalions of New Castle count)- have never even as- 
signed a reason why they have not joined me. Under these 
circumstances I removed to Noxon Town, where the camp 
duty on the few I have with me is less severe, until the other 
troops mentioned shall be read)^ to move forward, and have 
wrote this day to Colonel Gist on that head. Yesterday evening 
I sent a party of my light horse to take a view of the enemy 
and gain intelligence. The officer with his men returned 
this morning and reports that he was in Aitkens' tavern 
house, past some miles through the late encampment of the 
enemy round about that place, saw and was among the fires 
they had left burning ; that the extreme part of their right 
wing was at Cooche's mill, their left toward Newark. This 
intelligence makes me more anxious to collect and move 
forward such a body as would be able to render you signal 
service by falling upon and. harrassing their right wing or 
rear. Be assured all I can do shall be done. But he that 
can deal with militia may almost venture to deal with 

the . As soon as I can set forward shall advise you. 

God send you a complete victory. I am, dear sir, 
Your most obedient, humble servant, 

C^SAR Rodney. 

Two days after the date of this last letter the battle of 
Brandywine was fought with serious disaster and loss to the 
American army. 

The battle of Germantown followed on October 4th, and 
just before that time Rodney strongly urged the importance 
of the occupation of Wilmington and capture of the small 
British force in possession of the town, to induce a diversion 
of the enem\-. 



6^ 

Friction or jealousy, however, between the officer in 
command of the local detachment of " regular " forces of our 
anny and the militia under Rodney, defeated his plan, which 
was formed with a view to restore confidence among the 
inhabitants after the reverse at Brandywine. 

On the 31st of March, 1778, General Rodney was 
elected president of the Delaware State for the term of three 
years, and as his letter of acceptance is so characteristic, I 
have copied it from the record. 

WednEvSday a. M., April ist, 1778. 
Gentlevien of the General Assembly : 

I received yesterday afternoon your message declaring 
me duly elected President of the Delaware State, and am fully 
sensible of the honor done me by the appointment ; but as I am 
too conscious of my own inability to suppose your expectation 
will be answered by my acceptance, I hope I shall be excused. 
I think, nevertheless, that at a time like this, it is the duty 
uf every member of society to take such part in the civil line 
as shall be assigned him by the government, if tolerably 
qualified ; therefore if the General Assembly cannot fix upon 
some other person more equal to that important duty, I shall, 
though with the greatest diffidence, accept ; in full confi- 
dence, however, that your honors will afford me ever}' neces- 
sary aid in the due execution of the laws, and otherwise sup- 
porting the civil government as now established under the 
authority of the people ; and as the provision made for the 
president is by no means an ample one ; that the General 
Assembly would not wish to add to the sacrifice I have 
already made, by which more than ought to fall to the share 
of any one member of the community. 

C^SAR Rodney. 

Dover, April ist, 1778. 

His gubernatorial messages to the Legislature abundant- 
ly attest his unremitting activity in the cause of independ- 
ence, and his correspondence with parties outsiae the State 
will show how important was the aid he rendered. 



^3 

From the unpublished files of the Department of State 
I have copies of sundr)- letters from President Rodne\- 
during- this period of office, addressed to General Wash- 
ington and to the committee of co-(5peration, which may 
form an appendix to these remarks. 

Two original letters have also been placed in my hands 
by Mr. John M. C. Rodney, one of Sept. 19, 1779, to Col. 
Craighead, and another of May 6, 1780, unaddressed, and I 
do not feel at liberty to withhold from you the contents of 
both, for Caesar Rodney's own words, like his own deeds, tell 
best what manner of man he was. 

Dover, Sept. the 19th, 1779. 

Sir: — About seven or eight days ago I wrote you on the 
subject of providing in time for the Delaware Regiment, and 
then inclosed you copies of letters from the Board of War, Cloth- 
ier General and on that head. I now beg leave inclo.se you a 
copy of a late resolution of Congress I am just now furnished 
with, to the same purpose, and must beg- leave, tho' perhaps 
unnecessary, to urge your immediate attention to this business 
that you do not neglect, as soon as possible, to lay a full state 
of it before ' the Board of War, and the Clothier General, 
and that you also furnish me with another, in order that I 
may be enabled to lay the same before the General Assembly 
at their next meeting, and urge their making ample provi- 
sion for carrying the requisition of CongTess into execution 
in future. 

I am, sir, your most obedient and most humble servant, 

Cjesatl Rodney. 

Col. G. Craighead. 

Dover, May the 6th, 1780. 
Sir: — I received a letter of the 24th ult. from the Baron 
de Kalb, a Major-General in our army, requesting an im- 
mediate supply of cash for the officers of the Delaware Regi- 
ment now moving to the southward, to be advanced them by 
this State in consequence of a resolution of Congress, to make 
good to the army the depreciation of the paper currency, aS. 



64 

it ivS highly probable the General will not join the troops 
before their embarkation at the head of Elk. I mnst beg- 
leave to give the officers, thro' yon, snch answer as I shonld 
have given him. There is little donbt bnt the officers' wishes 
and perhaps their expectations are eqnal to their wants, if so, 
their disappointment mnst be great. I am well acquainted 
both with their vv'ants and their worth, it is therefore with 
great concern I told yon that no snch resolntion as above 
written has been comminiicated to me by Congress, and that 
there are no monie;:; granted by the General Assemby of this 
State snbject to m\- order, in favonr of any person, save the 
State Clothier. Whenever I have it in my power, be assured 
I shall not want an inclinatioii to serve the Delaware officers. 
I am obediently, C. Rodney. 

Caesar Rodney was a moral force, and his spirit infused 
itself throughout the community in which he lived. 

No accurate census of the population of the union was 
attempted until 1790, and the estimates prior to that date dif- 
fer widely. In April 1783, in the diary of James Madison 
of the debates of the Congress of the confederation, a report 
of the grand committee is published, wherein the table of the 
population of the several States is given '' upon the best infor- 
mation they could obtain ;" four only of the States produc- 
ing what they termed "authentic documents of the number. " 
By this the total number of the inhabitants in the thirt,een 
States was 2,359,300 ; Virginia being foremost in population, 
Massachusetts second, Pennsylvania third, and New York 
having fewer than Connecticut. 

Delaware, the least of all, had but 35,000 souls, and of 
these 35,000 at least 2000 were negro slaves, leaving 33,000 
white people of all ages. Assuming a numerical equality of 
the sexes, there were 16,500 males. By the present rule of 
draft and conscription, all males (not disabled) between the 
ages of eighteen and forty-four are considered as available 
for military service. This ratio by the census of 1880 was 
a fraction over twenty per cent, or one-fifth of the male pop- 
ulation. 



65 

By the Delaware regulation in 1776 the age of mili- 
tary service was from sixteen \-ears to fifty. If the total force, 
making no allowance for invalids nnder this last estimate, 
had been called out in 1783, Delaware would have contribu- 
ted 2125 men, or under the present rule as to militar)^ age 
1700 men. 

There is, however, no authenticated and complete roster 
■of the Continental armies of the revolutionary period. 

In this State I know of no one with better faculty or 
more honest intent for an accurate ascertainment of the 
number of men who marched from Delaware to fight the 
battles of American independence, than the late Judge 
William G. Whiteley. 

In a carefully prepared address at the centennial cele- 
bration in 1876, in Philadelphia, Judge Whiteley stated the 
number of men contributed by Delaware to the Continental 
army to have been 4728, exclusive of militia battalions and 
companies raised for home protection. 

During the late war, to prevent secession, the vigorous 
epigram was attributed to General Grant that the government 
of the late Confederacy had "robbed the cradle and the 
grave ' ' to fill their armies. 

But it is submitted to you, the descendants of the " Del- 
aware men of '76," can any record of militar)- contribution 
■surpass that of our forefathers ? 

And such troops were they ! There is scarcely a 
battlefield all the way from Long Island to Camden in 
South Carolina, and back again to Yorktown, in which the 
bones of Delaware soldiers do not moulder. The testimony 
from all quarters of their courage and devotion is not a cur- 
rent — it is a torrent ! 

Shall we call a few of the cloud of witnesses? Let 
Washington, Green, DeKalb, answer. Let the report of 
every battle in which they were engaged speak for them. 
Few of these brave men survived the war; as usual, the most 
daring fell — and in the reaction of distress and poverty that 
succeeded the struggle, those who did survive returned to the 



66 

labor of supporting their families, often crippled with wounds 
or disabled by disease contracted in the campaigns through 
which they had passed. 

Washington once bitterly described Conway, saying 
" that it was a maxim with him to leave no service of his 
own untold, nor to want anything that could be obtained by 
importunity." 

To describe the troops from Delaware his language 
would have been entirely reversed, for not they — nor, alas ! 
any one as yet for them — has told the true stor\' of their 
services, and they never importuned, even for simple justice, 
the government they had served. 

Colonel Thomas Rodney, brother of Csesar, himself a 
brave and good soldier, was captain of the company of Dover 
Light Infantry, at whose head he marched to join Washing- 
ton's army before the battle of Trenton, and subsequently 
was engaged, together with the Delaware troops, at the battles 
of Princetown and Monmouth. 

This Dover company, because of their excellence in dis- 
cipline and equipment, were detailed for duty as General 
Washington's headquarters guard, and in the MSS. of 
Thomas Rodney I find the following reference to the Dela- 
ware Regiment : — 

"The first Delaware Regiment when reviewed by Con- 
gress, at Philadelphia, was acknowledged to be the stoutest 
and best looking, as w^ell as the best disciplined of any in the 
army, their conduct on Long Island in the first action against 
Howe, obtained them the first character; they were the last 
that maintained their ground against the enemy, and when 
they could stand no longer, being surrounded by far superior 
numbers, every other part of the field being lost, they fought 
their way, made a good retreat and brought off several 
prisoners. The chief honor of the day on this occasion was 
ascribed by the regiment to the spirited conduct of Captain 
Jonathan Caldwell of Kent; for the Colonel was Absent and 
the Lieutenant-Colonel and Major were men of no previous 



6/ 

experience, so that by consent, as it were. Captain Calchvell, 
who had been an officer in the late war, and was a man of 
daring- and undannted spirit, was admitted chiefly to direct 
the regiment. 

''The Col. Hazlett, being afterwards killed at Princetown, 
and the Lt. -Colonel and Major leading, resigned, the com- 
mand of the regiment next year was offered to Captain Cald- 
well, bnt President McKinley having offended him in the 
manner of doing this, he refused it and left the regiment 
and retired. 

"The command of the regiment then devolved on Col. 
David Hall, and such continued to be the spirited conduct of 
of the officers and men that they preserved their distinguished 
and superior character throughout the war. Adams, Stevens, 
and Holland, all brave officers, as well as the Col. Hazlett, at 
different times fell in the field of battle. Hall, Pope, Kirk- 
wood, Patten, Sanghan, McKennan, Jaquett, Wilson, Lear- 
motte, Cox, and in short almost every officer in the regiment, 
signalized and distinguished themselves in the course of the 
war. And such was their reputation that General Sullivan 
(who had often had the regiment under his command) de- 
clared in Congress in the year 1781 that they were far superior 
to any other corps i'n the army And in fact they became as 
much distinguished as the tenth legion was among the 
Romans.'' 

The surrender of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown in Octo- 
ber 1781, ended the last important battle of the Americans 
for independence. 

The vigor of Rodney and his State did not abate, and on 
the 19th of June, 1782, I find among resolutions passed by 
the General Assembly unanimously, one to the effect: — 

" That the whole power of this State shall be exerted for 
enabling Congress to carry on the war until a peace consist- 
ent with our federal union and national faith can be ob- 
tained." 



6'8 

Six months afterwards such a peace was obtained, and 
the provisional articles concluded in November 1782 were 
proclaimed by Congress in April 1783. The armistice de- 
claring a cessation of hostilities was signed at Paris in Jan- 
uary 1783, and on the 3d of September of that year the 
definitive treaty of peace was signed, in the first article of 
which his Britannic majesty acknowledged the thirteen 
States severally by name and as United vStates to be free, 
independent and sovereign States, and relinquished all 
claims to the government, proprietary and territorial rights 
thereof. 

John Dickenson had succeeded Mr. Rodney as President 
of the State, and was in that office when the preliminary 
articles were agreed to, but it remained for Nicholas Van- 
dyke, as President, to announce formally to the General As- 
^sembly, on June 5, 1783, the entrance of the United States 
to "an equal station among the nations of the earth." 

In October 1783 Mr. Rodney, together with John Ban- 
ning and Richard Bassett, was elected to represent the 
county of Kent in the Legislative Council, and by it unani- 
mously chosen speaker. 

On April 8, 1784, the minutes recite that the council 
met at the house of the Hon. Caesar Rodney, Esq., the 
speaker, he being too much indisposed to attend the usual place 
of meeting. On that day he signed a message to the House 
of x\ssembly, as speaker of the council, and this was his last 
recorded service. 

The adjournment was to May 24th, when he was too ill to 
attend, and in a few weeks the cruel malady by which he had 
been so long afflicted ended his mortal life. 

Cse.sar Rodney never married, and the happiness of con- 
jugal life, which he was so fitted by his ainiable [disposition 
to enjoy, was denied him. There are certain confidences so 
purely personal that the right to have them maintained sur- 
vives. 

Mr. Rodney was too warm-hearted a man not to have 
cherished an attachment wanner and stronQ-er than friend- 



69 

ship. Among- his papers proofs of such a dedication of his 
love and devotion have been found, but it was not his happy- 
fate to form the union which his heart desired. 

It was said of Washington that God gave him no child- 
ren in order that a nation might call him father; and may it 
not be said of Caesar Rodney that, although denied children 
he has to-day, in the young men of his native State, children 
of his example and character who cherish his memory with 
affection and gratitude ? 

Mr. Rodney's will is dated January 20, 1784, with a 
codicil of March 27, 1784, and the signature of the testator 
to the latter was affixed by Edward Tilghmsan, Jr. , in the 
presence of the testator and by his express direction. 

This inability to write indicates his extreme debility. 

His will was admitted to probate on July 3, 1784, the 
anniversary of his memorable ride to Philadelphia, eight 
years before. 

The instrument is unusually formal and verbose, cover- 
ing twenty pages, with a codicil occupying three more. It 
recites all his civil and military dignities, among them that 
of signer of the Declaration of Independence, and, with the 
natural pride of a man well born, gives his line of descent 
from the first settlement of his ancestors in America. 

The will testifies the benevolent nature of the man, 
giving legacies for charity and gratification, and carefully 
providing for the gradual manumission of his negro 
servants. 

His chief solicitude was for his nephew, Csesar Augus- 
tus Rodney, and as to him his devise was most careful: — 

"And it is my will and I do order that my brotlier, 
Thomas Rodney, have the management and direction of the 
lands, tenements and hereditaments and real estate herein 
before devised to his son, Csesar Augustus Rodney, and that 
during the minority of the said Caesar, or until the said 
Csesar die in his minority, and I do impower the said 
Thomas Rodney during the said time to farm, lease or let 



JO 

to rent the same to the best advantage and take and receive 
the rents, issues and profits thereof upon the special trust 
and confidence that he apply the whole of the said rents, 
issues and profits in the improvement of the said estate and 
the education of the said Caesar Augustus Rodney, paying, 
nevertheless thereout, the legacy herein before bequeathed 
to Christ's Church, in Dover (and that in three years at 
most after my decease), without interest, and reserving 
thereout a sufficient sum to purchase for the said Caesar 
against the time he arrives at the age of twenty-one years, a 
good and complete law library. And it is my most particu- 
lar wish and desire that my brother, Thomas Rodney, and 
those hereafter mentioned to succeed him in the power 
hereby given respecting the said estate, cause the said Caesar 
Augustus Rodney to be brought up in the religion com- 
monly called the Church of England, and be educated as 
liberally in classical learning, natural and moral philosophy 
and every other branch of literature that has a tendency to 
improve the understanding and polish the manners as rea- 
sonably as may be in America. ' ' 

But, alas for human foresight ! all of his discreet plans 
to protect his executors from embarrassment and secure the 
estate to his nephew were destined to defeat. 

The consequences of a protracted and exhausting war, 
after so severe a strain upon the resources of the people, led 
to great public and private distress. 

The sale of Mr. Rodney's landed estate was forced by 
his creditors for the payment of debts, and grossly 
sacrificed. 

The curse was added of a depreciated paper money sys- 
tem, that blood poison of the body politic, which inflicted 
more injury and caused more distress and demoralization 
than the eight years of war. 

A pleasing description of Mr. Rodney's personal appear- 
ance was given by his brother Thomas, from whosct MSS. I 
here transcribe it : — 



71 

" Caesar Rodney was about five feet ten inches high ; his 
person was very elegant and genteel ; his manners graceful, 
easy and polite. He had a good fund of humor, and the hap- 
piest talent in the world of making his wit agreeable, however 
sparkling and severe. He was a great statesman, a faithful 
public officer, just in all his dealings, easy to his family and 
•debtors, sincere to his friends, beneficent to his relatives, and 
kind to his servants, and always lived in a generous aud 
social style." 

And now before I bring to a close a prolix and w^hat I 
fear has been to }'ou a tedious attempt to describe the life and 
services of Caesar Rodney, I have a duty to perform which 
gives me especial joy and. pride. 

Since my arrival to-day in Dover, a document has been 
placed in my hands which may well be considered the jewel 
in Delaware's historical crown. 

The parchment I now hold up before you is the original 
ratification of the constitution of the United States, by the 
Deputies of the State of Delaware in convention on the 
•seventh day of December, seventeen hundred and eighty- 
seven, signed by all the delegates. 

The words of this document and the names of its signers 
should indeed become "household words" in every home in 
the State ; our children and our children's children should 
he taught what it means and all that it meant at that time. 

To know what the prompt, unanimous ratification of 
Delaware carried with it, we must recall the perilous uncer- 
tainty between anarchy and settled government in which the 
fate of our country then hung. Washington wrote : ' ' The 
constitution or disunion are before us to choose from." And 
again he wrote : "The political concerns of the country are 
suspended by a single thread. ' ' 

Early in December, just as Delaware was about to give 
her decision, Monroe wrote to Madison : "The cloud which 
hath hung over us for some time is not likely soon to be dis- 
pelled." 



72 

At such a critical moment the voice of Delaware was 
heard as she led the way to the ratification of the new con- 
stitution which, as Thomas Collins, President of the State, 
well said in his Legislative message, "involved in its 
adoption not only our prosperity and felicity, but, perhaps, 
our national existence." 

I trust steps will at once be taken to have photographic 
fac-similies of the ratification printed for dissemination 
among our people, and we may well congratulate each other 
that this precious document has been restored to the light 
and publicity. 

To you, young gentlemen of the Rodney Club, and to 
those of your generation must soon be entrusted the control 
of the State he loved and served so well. 

What lesson will you gather from his life ? Let his 
objects, his methods, a consideration of his springs of action, 
inform you. 

When political action and measures of government are 
proposed, or candidates are presented or present themselves, 
apply the test of Rodney, and ask : ' ' Will this measure or 
this man's election promote the welfare and reputation of my 
State and country?" 

Do not permit the great and real ends of free govern- 
ment to be obscured by the passions of party, or of petty fac- 
tions or self-interest. Lift your minds into a higher and 
clearer and happier atmosphere. 

In our day the creation of material wealth, the result of 
modern invention and the protection insured to it by a gov- 
ernment of laws, have begotten luxurious living and a spirit 
of plutocracy, widely different from true republicanism, an 
insolent and miserable system, containing all the faults of 
an aristocracy and not one of its virtues. This to-day im- 
perils the fabric of government reared by Rodney and his 
associates, and threatens to overflow our little State from ex- 
terior sources. 

The presence and use of money gathered ia richer cen- 
tres to influence elections here is one of the features of plu- 



73 

tocratic aggression, against which we should be on our 
guard, and every man who loves the good name of Delaware 
should openly denounce it. 

Power is given to Congress to fix the standards of 
weight and measurement, but other standards are as neces- 
sary, which no written laws can supply. I mean the stand- 
ards of political morality, of personal and official character 
and competency. Popular conscience and the tone of the 
community must establish these, and upon those who 
assume the functions of leadership the chief responsibility of 
setting the example must fall. 

There is a class of minds to whom poverty is never 
respectable, but always contemptible ; who continually mis- 
take bigness for greatness, and who coimt men and do not 
weigh them. 

To such persons the simple lives of the patriots who 
pledged " their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor " 
for the vindication of a principle will ever remain a sealed 
book. 

When Ulysses was tauntingly asked what crops the 
sterile soil of Ithaca could produce he answered '''' Men P'' 
And may not we of Delaware, descendants of the Blue Hen's 
Chickens of the Revolution, afford to smile at sneer or jest at 
our scanty area and population, and say our best crop is men 
— men like C.^sar Rodney ? 

What will be inscribed on his monument I know not, 
but are there words more fitting than those of Emerson ? — 

" Spirit that made these heroes dare 
To die — and leave their children free, 
Bid time and nature gently spare 

The shaft we raise to them and thee. ' ' 

At the conclusion of Mr. Bayard's address the meeting 
was adjourned to Christ Church Cemetery, where the monu- 
ment was unveiled by members of the Rodney Club and 
dedicated by the president, after which the presiding officer 
said : — 
F 



74 

"To all present, young- and old, this monument, 
erected over the precious dust of Caesar Rodney, may 
crumble and fade away, but the name of Rodney will live 
in the hearts of every Delawarean from generation to gener- 
ation. " 

The following resolution was offered by Bishop Cole- 
man and unanimously adopted : 

Resolved, That the hearty thanks of Delawareans are due to 
the members of the Rodney Club for their patriotic and laborious 
efforts in behalf of this monument, and to the Hon. Thomas F. Ba3^ard 
for his interesting and valuable historical discourse. 

Benediction was then pronounced by the Rt. Rev. B. 
Wistar Morris, Bishop of Oregon. 

The peace of God which passeth all understanding, keep your 
hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God, and of his son 
Jesus Christ our Lord ; and the blessings of God Almight5^ the Father, 
the Son, and the Holy Ghost, be amongst you, and remain with yaw 
always. Amen. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




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